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With PAX only four days away, my preparations have kicked into overdrive. I've have a ton of office work to get done before can I go, and I still have a bunch of painting I'd like to get done as well. Given that, my free time this weekend was all about speed painting.

First off, I'm signed up to play in a couple of different Living Forgotten Realms RPGA sessions. I'm not usually a Realms fan (I'd rather play Eberron or Pathfinder), so I wanted to play something straightforward that I had a good sense for the lore - which for me means dwarves. I can't quite decide what class to play yet (I'm torn between Paladin, Warlord or Cleric) but I knew I wanted a good-looking mini to put on the table.

I was surprised how hard it was to find a good dwarf model (especially considering that I was limited to what I could find locally - as I have no time left to order anything.) I finally settled on one of the Warhammer Fantasy Runelord models. Warhammer dwarves are a little shorter than I'd like, so I mounted him on a fancy Micro Art Studio resin base. I painted him up in just under a couple of hours. Now that I see it in the photo, there are a few little details that I need to touch up, but all in all, I like him, and I think he'll serve me well on the table - especially when put up against the cheap plastic WotC miniatures.

I also put the finishing touches on a lance of battlemechs I've been working on from the BattleTech Introductory Boxed Set. I'd like to have all of the mechs needed the three introductory missions painted up for PAX, but we'll see how far I get. This group represents the mechs required for one side to play the first couple of missions. I'd like to get the opponent mechs painted as well (red, of course, so we can have some iconic Red vs. Blue action.)


On an unrelated note: Thursday night some folks at my local game store were playing a demo copy of the new Space Hulk, and I have to admit, I was impressed. The game has some nice production values and really great "table appeal." I never played the original, but watching them play this one, I found myself really wanting to pick it up. It might just be able to scratch the 40K itch without having to actually play 40K! Just what I need - another game.

The new Space Hulk. The minis look really great.

Labels: BattleTech, Board Games, Dungeons and Dragons, miniatures, RPGs, Warhammer 40K, Warhammer Fantasy

It's almost time for PAX! Last year was my first time at the show (PAX Cherry!) but this year I plan to be back with a vengence. For me, PAX is a chance to hang out until 3 in the morning and play games with a lot of like-minded folks, and play some games that I might otherwise not get around to playing. So what's on tap this year? I'm rolling in with a suitcase full of gaming goodness! Here's what is coming with me:

Living Forgotten Realms: I'm going to be playing in my first RPGA event while at PAX, and a buddy and I are signed up for a couple of different sessions. I've been running a game of D&D on-and-off for the last few years, but I haven't been on the player's side of the DM screen in almost 20 years. I'm realtively new to 4E, having just switched over about a month back, but I think I have a good enough handle on it for this kind of deal. Other than that, I have no idea what to expect from this format, but it should be a good time.




BattleLore: I picked this game up a good while back, but I haven't really had a chance to put through it's paces. It's a nice balance of board game and war game, with a slick card mechanic for orders and tactics and a simple dice mechanic for resolving combat. It really seems like a great "in between" game to play with friends who have some interest in pushing around little men, but not the patience or inclination for full-fledged miniature gaming. You can check out my first impression way back here.


Cutthroat Caverns: "Without teamwork, you will never survive. Without betrayal, you’ll never win." A simple card game that puts the players in the role of an adventuring party that has discovered the "Sacred Item of Unimaginable Marvel" - and of course, you each want it for your own. Unfortunately, nine monsters (randomly drawn from an encounter deck) stand between you and the exit to the dungeon. If you don't work as a team, you won't have the horsepower to make it out, but if you don't backstab the others at just the right moment, you can't claim the prize for yourself. It's straightforward screw-thy-neighbor gaming at it's best.


Infernal Contraption: This is a game I bought at PAX last year in the Privateer Press booth. It's definately a beer and pretzels affair, but is surprisingly fun to play. Another card game, this one has you trying to assemble an "infernal contraption" with the goal of forcing your opponent to consume all of his resources (cards) before you run out of cards yourself. This quickly became our go-to game inbetween events.






Battletech: An old favorite that I haven't played since I was a teenager. This is the granddaddy of big, stompy robot games, and is an interesting mix of board game, wargame and RPG. The game itself has had some rough years, passing from FASA to FanPro, and ultimately to Catalyst Games Labs. The good news is that Catalyst seems to be doing well by the series, and has put out a Introductory Boxed Set that is a great introduction to the game. (You you read my impressions the boxed set, along with my glowing fanboyism here)




And that's about it - and that should be plenty. I think it's going to be a great geek party - they have already sold out all of the three day passes (something like 75,000 passes!) and the daily passes are going fast.

9 days until PAX.

Labels: BattleTech, Board Games, Dungeons and Dragons, PAX, PAX09, RPGs

BattleTech was my first foray into gaming beyond classic Red Box D&D. I picked up the first printing back in the summer of 1985, which would have made me somewhere around 12 years old. We spent that entire summer fighting epic combats between huge, armored robots, and I loved every minute of it. This is the game that coined the term "Mech" - a term that has almost become synonymous for describing giant robots - it has become part of the geek vernacular, and you even hear it used by people who never played the game.

BattleTech is a game that defies categorization - it is one part miniature wargame, one part boardgame, and one part giant robot RPG. Each robot has its own character sheet, with tons of details and endless options for player customization. Half the fun of the game was pouring over technical specifications and building your own mech. The core robot-building mechanic involved a three-way balancing act between the available tonnage, structural space and heat management, and it was great fun to see what you could come up with. I still remember building incredibly risky mechs, heavy on the firepower but poorly equipped to manage the heat generated by those massive weapons - they would either deliver a rapid death to my enemies or mushroom cloud themselves as they quickly overheated their nuclear cores.

My attempt at painting up the plastic models from the Classic Batteltech Introductory Boxed Set

So, on a whim, and maybe with hopes of recapturing some of that nostalgia, I picked up the Classic BattleTech introductory Boxed Set put out by Catalyst Game Labs, the latest owner of the BattleTech franchise. At face value, it's quite a complete set that includes: Quick Start Rules, Introductory Rules, a fluff book called "The Inner Sphere at a Glance," a pair of maps, dice, and 24 plastic miniatures to represent your robots on the battlefield.

While the contents themselves have good artistic production values, the quality is a bit lacking on some of the components. The quickstart rules are printed on magazine stock (even the cover) and I doubt will stand up to much abuse, although the other two books are a better quality. The maps are printed on cheap poster-paper, like you would expect to get out of a magazine insert. This was especially disappointing considering the heavy-duty cardboard maps from the original boxed set (thankfully, I still have those). Map quality becomes especially important when you consider that Battletech is not a normal wargame that uses a tape measure and free-form terrain, and requires a hex map to play properly. But of course, if you read this blog, it's probably the miniatures that you are most interested in...

When it comes to miniatures, the good news is that Catalyst wasn't stingy... twenty-four models is a nice amount, given the small scale of the game. Unfortunately, the models are mediocre at best. This is partially the sculpts themselves, and partially the fact that I just don't like a lot of the mech designs. Back when I was first playing the game, most of the robot designs were stolen from anime sources, and frankly looked much better. The models themselves are made from a medium-soft plastic that isn't as nice as GW plastics, but not as bad as something like the D&D pre-painted miniatures. I was a little disappointed at first, but then I decided I would put some paint on them before I passed final judgment. Who knows - it worked for the Black 13th...

So, I painted three of them up this weekend, and I have to admit that they look a lot better with some color (see the pic above). I'm still not a huge fan of the robot designs, but I'd be plenty content to put them on the table and enjoy the game. If I were getting serious, I would probably be looking elsewhere: The Iron Wind Metals versions look somewhat better, and if I were really looking to get back into the game I would consider proxying the far-superior CAV models from Reaper.

All-in-all, the CBT Introductory Boxed Set still feels like a good deal for $40. I think BattleTech almost requires a box-set to introduce it to new players. Because it is more board game than war game, having everything in one place makes it much easier to get a sense of the game. Kudos to Catalyst Games Labs for realizing this and bringing the boxed set back. For many people, it's all they will ever need, especially for casual play. I'd definitely recommend picking it up if you've ever wondered what the game is all about, or if you share my fond memories of it from more than 20 years ago. Either way, it's a worthy addition to any gamer's shelf, and provides a taste of what was one of the seminal games of the last 20 years. I'm looking forward to painting up the rest of the models and getting a few games in with old friends later this summer at PAX.

Labels: BattleTech, miniatures, wargaming