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[Doom]

Thanks Max.

For putting the final nail in my coffin. 

[MadMAxJr]

If you want cheap parts to work with, go to a hobby lobby, and look for the military miniatures.  Usually there are some marked down ones, like jeeps and stuff in the $15 range.  Use your imagination and only half-follow the instructions to get some really orky stuff.  I had this grand scheme to orkify an M1A1 tank kit, but not only was it huge, I ended up parting with all my orks to get funds to move across the country...

Also, for 40k...  The new ork codex is out, I think.  So that's a solid book.  But the core rules apparently have a new edition due out this year...  So be aware.

[Burrito Al Pastor]

40k rules are pretty good about backwards-compatibility; the upcoming core rules will be the fifth edition, and there's some factions that haven't had a new codex since third. A spot of errata here and there and you're set; the fundamental mechanics are pretty concrete by now.

Orks did just get a new codex, and it's very nice. Of particular note to you is that "Looted Vehicle" is now a generic vehicle, and you just spend points for the various specifics any specific looted vehicle has, like a cannon or whatever; in the previous codex, you had looted specific vehicles, which were as per the normal vehicles except as follows sort of thing. The catch, of course, is that you had to go to the Space Marine codex to find out what a looted Predator did. (The new generic template also gives you a lot more creative freedom. Loot a Hammerhead tank! Loot a Carnifex! Loot a Monolith! Why not?)

[Ted Belmont]

Now I can't help but imagine Orks as a race of Zoidbergs, scuttling around, digging other race's vehicles out of the trash.

[MadMAxJr]

Now I can't help but imagine Orks as a race of Zoidbergs, scuttling around, digging other race's vehicles out of the trash.

This particular ork breed is the 'Loota'.  It's their job to make blasty bits out of whatever.

Anyway.  Miniatures are one of a handful of gaming aspects in a nerd store.  Any other questions?

[Büge]

I've always wondered what happens to the games whose shelf life can be measured in months (e.g. Hecatomb).

[MadMAxJr]

I called it the isle of misfit games.  We had a large discount table up by the front door where things that had been around long enough to be sun-bleached, or just plain unpopular items go.  Every game, no matter how bad has some kind of fanbase.  And when you finally drop the price to like a dollar a pack just to move that crap, someone will buy it.  A lot of it. After a certain point in time (probably a handful of years), inventory is written off as a loss.  At that point, we either hope to make a few dollars on it, or I just personally hoped someone might steal it and later come to realize it's terrible.  This is the fate of most anime based CCGs, and many 3rd-string d20 product companies.

[Guild]

This is a review?

Last night some friends invited me to play Warhammer's Dark Heresy, a new p&prpg. The gimmick is that the entire system can be played with 2d10.

So I made a character. I spent over 30 minutes randomly rolling (you can also manually select them) such minutiae as height, eye color, even a debilitating trait (I walk with a slight limp which I immediately declared to be a gangster lean). I randomly rolled "The pain of the bullet is ecstasy compared to damnation!" Toughness +1. Hell yeah.

The character creation system is rad. Being a pen and paper master (level 28 Game Master with a Greatsword forged from the soul of a dead overgod and boots of PCKing*) I had little trouble with it. On the other hand I can see how a newb would be turned off by this potentially rather lengthy process. On a third, mutant hand many gamers I know go apeshit for character creation, and the guys at Black Industries seemed to have a very good understanding of this.

With my character locked and loaded (Victus Kylo is a Void-born Psyker with powers over the human mind and a plastic surgery fetish) we started to play.

Sweet loins of Jesus.

When it came time for battle we spread CD cases and about 25 random D6 out on the floor. The DM declared that dice were crates. Our figurines moved 1-2 cm. per round, rapidly dispatching seven armed thugs from the Scum sector (the uberghetto) of an icy world's capital city. We were delighted to learn that Khorn had sent an invasion force to summon a Collector precursor in an attempt to inspire Warp-borne corruption in our Imperial sector. During downtime I got my eyelids and lips removed.

The combat system is fast, adrenaline-friendly and above all very satisfying.

When the session was over we sat around praising the many neat features of the system, not the least of which was the 5 minute leveling at the end. Despite purchasing three new abilities with my 400 experience points I failed to level, which was refreshing. While more fast-paced than D&D's advancement it's still slow enough for months of good solid roleplay/combat potential. Leveling will never take more than two minutes, keeping the flow intact if you've got any kind of a decent GM**.

All around great purchase. All that is needed is this one book and a single d10, though it helps to have 2 or more (We had 24). The most I had to roll was 2d10 but later in the book a weapon that deals 5d10 damage was noticed by one player, prompting a "Holy fuck that's a ton of damage!"

This system is exactly what I was looking for in FFAGS: A compact, easy to learn roleplaying system with enough realism to satisfy the PCK in me and enough flavor to satisfy the storyteller in me.

I give it 8/10 in the category of gameplay and 8/10 for flavor.
Reviewer comparison ratings:
BESM: 8/10 gameplay and 7/10 flavor
Star Wars Sagas Edition: 9/10 gameplay and 7/10 flavor
D&D 3.0: 6/10 gameplay and 8/10 flavor
D&D 3.5: 7/10 gameplay and 8/10 flavor

*They call me a Player Character Killer, beezy.

**All that is needed to be a good GM is the knowledge that most players don't really care if it's a bit cheesy, contrived or just plain predictable. It's more important that they pay attention to who's bored and what that player likes to do, then provides those situations in at least some haphazard semblance of a meaningful timeline.

[MadMAxJr]

Now that you have made people interested in Dark Heresy, I wish you luck in finding a freaking copy.

[Guild]

Update: My psyker had a .25% chance to be sucked into the warp (instant death) with a tiny burp noise whilst using one of his low-level powers.

Guess what happened.

Speaking of errata: My math was off. I forgot you have to roll a 9 on a d10 just to initiate the sequence. So that's a .025% chance, or two or three times out of every 10,000 uses of a minor power. I used minor powers exactly seven times and it activated. HE WAS CURSED FROM BIRTH!

Also: T:Burrito. Fixed and also yeah well your mom is tedious

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Dark Heresy is a really amazing system, but it's grossly misleading to claim that you can play the game with a single d10; if you do, you're rolling twice for every roll, since it's primarily percentiles. I mean, hypothetically you could play D&D with a single d20, but that doesn't mean it'd be a good idea.

There's a reprint coming in summer, which will include revisions from the errata.

Also, apparently the first supplement (Inquisitor's Handbook or somesuch) is pure gold.

In related news, apparently I'm writing up a Tau supplement for Dark Heresy. The system is almost criminally easy to develop material for.

[Saturn]

I'm gonna take a wild guess as to what the 5d10 weapon was: Melta gun?

[Detonator]

I'm gonna take a wild guess as to what the 5d10 weapon was: Melta gun?

Lascannon, actually.  Meltagun is 2d10+4, which is still very good.

And the lascannon has a +10 damage modifier, with an armor penetration of 10 (higher is better).  Needless to say, you will die if this hits you.

[Saturn]

Yeah, i downloaded a scan of the inquisitor's handbook, and it looks fucking awesome (if only because i can be a Admech techpriest with ROBOT DRILL ARMS ATTACHED TO MY SPINE)

Still need to find a scan of the core stuff though.

[MadMAxJr]

Doom reminded me of some more things I need to try oh-so-hard to forget.

Yu-gi-oh playing child, who refused to play the game any other way than the way it is shown on TV.  By standing next to the table, shouting card names at the top of his lungs, and trying to be a total drama queen about it.  If he had just been a bit quieter, I would have been able to laugh.  The creepy part is he had a band of three friends standing next to him stating the obvious about cards he played.  I don't want to know what kind of bizzaro sidekick relationship he managed to craft with them.

HA HA!  YOU FOOL!  I PLAY [Someting I can't recall] IN FACE DOWN MODE!  SOON YOU WILL BE DEFEATED!

I am seriously not kidding.

Another note, is some tips for hanging out with miniatures gamers.  If your foe has some highly detailed models on the table, perhaps on your end of the table after the end of a game, be sure to ask before touching them, even if only to kindly hand then back.  It is a simple generous courtesy as they might have spent considerable time working on that model, and it may not have a coat of clear sealer to prevent your fingers from rubbing off the paint.  Just ask first.   Never under any condition flick the models in the middle so they roll across the table back towards your opponent, because he beat you so hard on the table, and that a particular rule not only doesn't work the way you thought it did, it's very hard to believe how you came to believe it worked that way in the first place.  Because 1, misunderstandings happen.  We have words.  We talk it out.  And 2?  I'll probably look the other way if he wants top savagely beat you with a heavy model in a sock.

I have a few other stories that surfaced to mind recently, but I'm not sure if I want to admit I witnessed such a thing.

[Brentai]

Yu-gi-oh playing child, who refused to play the game any other way than the way it is shown on TV.  By standing next to the table, shouting card names at the top of his lungs, and trying to be a total drama queen about it.

Nah, it's only like the TV show if he's always got three friends over on the sidelines jabbering inanely about

The creepy part is he had a band of three friends standing next to him stating the obvious about cards he played.

 

[Cannon]

...But will I see it on YouTube?

[Spaco]

It's not good for brick and mortar stores, but trading/buying used miniatures locally or on www.bartertown.com is the only way to go for those looking to not go broke. If you're a thrifty shopper, you can get barely used or even new minis for 40%-50% off retail. I'm actually in the process of clearing out my last warhammer fantasy army on bartertown to finance a study abroad trip, and have bought, sold, and traded probably close to half a dozen armies with no problem on there.

[MadMAxJr]

For used items, that's perfectly fine.  Stores that deal in used items tend to be rare, usually will only hold items for well established customers, items must be of a certain quality, and the store expects a cut.  Typically trading used items online isn't too harmful.

Buying NEW items online, when you have a friendly local game store (FLGS) within reasonable distance that at least follows MSRP, you kill that store with each online buy.  Enjoy that deal you got, while you slowly run out of places to play.

If you consistently play hobby games in a store you do not regularly buy things from (More than just vending machine goods), you're doing it wrong, and you're killing a fun industry.  Thanks, jerk.

[Niku]

HA HA HA YEAH RIGHT, ONLINE IS THE FUTURE

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