Wargaming - Back In The Game

Wednesday, 6 July 2016

Run Deadzone Campaign On Team Builder

Hi All,

Update on the Deadzone team builder.

http://deadzone-grich.rhcloud.com/

I have added some campaign management/tracking for users who log in.

To Create:

Click Manage Campaigns
Create Campaign and get Invite Code
Give Invite Code to Friends

To Join:

Select a Team
Click Join Campaign with Team
Paste Invite Code

You can start a deadzone campaign by clicking the new 'Manage Campaigns' button after logging in. When you have created a campaign you will be the manager and it will be listed in your manage campaigns view with an invitation code.

You can supply this invitation code to your campaign friends who can then use it to join it with their teams. A team may only join one campaign. Once joined the user can see how their team is fairing with 'view campaign for team' button.This lists all the teams which have joined the campaign;Total RP and Campaign points.

Only users can edit their own teams RP Points etc. its literally just a view so its an honor policy I guess. Managers cant change the values. In addition currently there is no delete campaign for the manager or leave campaign for the teams.

This is new and virtually untested so let me know if there are any bugs or errors.

Hope this is useful for people, let me know either way. There is a feedback function on the site or just ping me a comment.

All the best

Rich

Wednesday, 29 June 2016

Deadzone Team Builder

Free Use Deadzone Team Builder

Hi All,

I have created a Deadzone Team Builder for use on single games and campaigns. Features are printing, PDF etc with more functionality for campaign management coming. Easy and secure login for team saving functionality with Facebook. With a view to add google login in the near future.

http://deadzone-grich.rhcloud.com/

It is currently hosted at the above URL but if it gains enough traction I will be able to afford it a proper domain.

Any and all feed back is appreciated.

Rich

Thursday, 15 October 2015

The Three Plains : Epic Games - For my Kings of War on a Budget

I have recently been looking a lot more into paper model wargaming. My main rationale are the resources of time and finances. Although in an ideal world I want a stonking great fully painted army for wargaming, what I really want to do now is play games! I enjoy modelling and painting but not to the commitment level that is required to get an army fielded as quickly and to the extent that I want too.

That for the most part has been the reason my current miniature collection consists of the skirmish style or team games. This is not for lack of desire for epic scale wargaming. Many people I speak to have the same thoughts. One of my friends actively avoids miniatures games to some degree for that exact reason even though he was heavily into Warhammer and other games in his earlier years. He now sticks to card or tiles games generally cool little ones he's found on kickstarter.

This thought stream lead me to finding the following.......

The Three Plains

Epic Wargaming - Home Page Rules

I gave the rules a quick read myself and they are very extensive and detailed. However there is a lot to digest and finding an opponent willing to put the time in for a trial game may prove difficult. I found a good full review of the rules on The Shell Case:
The Three Plains Rules Review

Whats Here
Lots and lots and lots of free to use paper models. A full set of free rules, extensive resources and youTube videos of battle reports.

Free Model Downloads
So There are currently a total of four full armies of paper models for free download: Elves, Men, Mercenaries and Orcs
There appear to be more on the way including Dwarves and Summoners. The art is good quality and the variety is huge.

Overall
Simply put a large amount of work has gone into this and it deserves major props to Epic Games and the creator Dave Scholes.

My Uses
So why am I talking about Kings of War? So the rules for The Three Plains are free too and as I said they appear to be detailed, in-depth and well conceived. But I return to my previous point of "what I really want to do now is play games!". Do I invest the time in learning a new rule set (Yes) but I still need to find a friend who wants to learn the rules too. I know the rules for Kings of War, it is a quick game to get in to and also has the benefit of having a current large player base/community. I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to field a paper army at my club while I build my model base.
I do want to play The Three Plains (the lore reads nicely, blue magical orc hags!!) I just need to find me an opponent. What I really want is a precident set that paper models are a serious alternative for gamers to get into a rules system.

Any way let me know your thoughts.

Thursday, 24 September 2015

Frostgrave Scenery - Paper Models

Found some great paper models for making some much needed scenery fast and free.

Test of the Models

Chest:
Observatory:

I thought they were brilliant quality especially since they are free!

Sites:

I found a load of sites that provide templates for free:

Fantasy Paper Miniatures Blog
Onemonk
Cardboard-Warriors - Proboards
Germy - Papermodels
Daves Games
Wargame Vault

Wednesday, 9 September 2015

Freebooter's Fate - First Impressions

So first game of Freebooter's fate last night and all I can say is no dice....

....AWESOME!!!

In brief

I played Pirates against my opponents Brotherhood. We both had the basic starter sets except for my specialist (I had Spitfire instead, woman with a massive multi-barrelled gun... devastating)

It's a well tested game and has an in-depth and interesting back story for the crews but with a huge element of insane fun (especially with the Goblin crew). All measurements are in metric (the game is German) which I personally preferred but I'm guessing might dissuade those gamers who still use imperial measurements everyday(naming no countries).

As with my previous Frostgrave review (although this game is much older) the scenery is key. The stuff we had available at the club that my opponent made was fantastic. It really added value to the game so lots of building levels, trees, jungle gangways all adding to a rich and absorbing experience. Rather than dice everything is dealt with (pun intended) by cards. Combat is almost a form of more complex Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. But with corresponding body parts each having an effect on your crew members capability.

For an overview of the rules check out the quick start guide. The Download for the quick start guide is available for free from the website here:

Freebooter's Quick Start Guide

Crews & Starter Sets

I found the Pirates to be good all rounders my crew stood well in combat but had real punch with ranged as well. The brotherhood are sneaky as assassins, they had not a great deal in the way of ranged but compensated by being incredibly fast with lots of special hiding moves, poisons and sneak attack complex moves.

I won't go into each crew but the list of those available is as follows:

_{Links take you to official crew pages.}

The starter crews come in around £25-30 ($35-45) but there were crews going second hand on Ebay for cheaper (more like £15 - 20)

UK:

Freebooter's Fate Starter Set

UK:

Freebooter's Fate Starter Set

Overall

A really great game with a fantastic and different combat mechanic. There is scope for some campaign (in the further books) and it can be scaled up to include other players and crews easily. Its meant for fun crazy so a co-op scenario against waves of zombie octopus' is totally plausible!

Wednesday, 2 September 2015

Frostgrave - First Game Impressions

Introduction

So my first game of Frostgrave is over and I can see this is going to be fun in a campaign game. This was not a campaign game just an initial basic game with no scenario.

Warbands

I played my Enchanter Warband (previously posted) against a my opponent's Thaumaturge. We both had seven Warband soldiers and an apprentice. It worked well as the wizard and apprentice activations occur first most of the action was happening in these phases keeping our Warband soldiers close by them. I found starting with lots of low cost soldiers (as recommended by the book) hugely advantageous to fewer but higher cost soldiers, especially when I looked at the other games being played.

Table Top

The size of table top I found a bit small (2' x 4'). I would have preferred something more of a square 4'x4' as it would have added better options for treasure placement. As it was all the treasure was in a strip down the centre of the board. Also our terrain was far too sparse, although initially it felt like a lot. We did not have enough levels the highest buildings being a single story.

Overview

So for starters I really like my Warband set up and was pleased with my choices in game. For the board set up we used I found my Warband was balanced for my purposes but I massively overpowered my opponent. I felt sorry towards the end as I had killed a number of his warband (including the apprentice) and the survivors ended up retreating off the board. I lost none of my own men (although one of my thugs took some damage at the beginning). Had this been a campaign game it would have been a crippling defeat.

I had two archers and a crossbowman which were integral to my victory. In addition I also had the Grenade and Telekinesis Spells (both Enchanter spells). This meant I could pull the treasure tokens towards me whilst picking him off at long range. We didn’t even get a chance for a single melee combat.

I did get some very lucky rolls and my opponent had some unlucky ones when casting magic, taking damage for miscasting on two occasions.

Suggestions

It was mentioned that in a campaign the wizard gets experience for killing things. This heavily weights the gaining of experience to those wizards with cheap and effective offensive spells. These include such wizards as Elementalist and Necromancer. Whilst a more buffing spell wizard like a Thaumaturge is less likely to kill things playing more of a support role to his warband soldiers.

Overall

Really great game that I'm glad to have invested in. There are answer to the FAQ's already posted and it is dirt cheap to get into. The community seems to be growing rapidly and campaign expansions are coming out soon (November I believe). I will try to steal the Wizard sheets from my fellow players and post them for perusal (if they let me) so we can all get a balanced view on what makes a good starting wizard.

Any additions, experiences or suggestions you have let me know. We are constructing our own in house rules for the a campaign and any help is welcome.

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Frostgrave - Warband in progress

Finally started putting my warband together. Got the Frostgrave box set which is really nice with a good variety of options for your soldiers. There are four main bodies eight heads and a multitude of bits. There are four sprues in total in the box (all the same).

Available here:

Frostgrave Soldiers