Appeal To The Masses

So, in the process of working on my Warhammer Quest set I have run aground of not having all the models. I have procured a great many that I needed via forums and friends, but now I appeal to you the masses. I am looking for 3 Snotlings and 12 of the Rats pictured below. If you have them and are willing to part with them please send me an e-mail and work us up a deal. It would be most appreciated!




Thank you all!

Board Game Review: Wits & Wagers

So I'd been thinking of doing Board Game reviews on the Podcast and with it having ended and me never achieving that goal I'm definitely going to use this Blog as an outlet now. I'm an avid Board Gamer and love them as much as Warhammer so you can definitely expect to see some Board Game Reviews coming through here. Hope you enjoy them!

I won this game out of a Christmas Geek-list on Board Game Geek from the creator, Dominic Crapuchettes. Part of the agreement was that if you entered the contest and won that you would write a bunch of reviews on some of the larger retailers websites, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, etc...

So happily I won and while I didn't win early enough in the thread to win a bonus game I was thrilled nonetheless. The game is a lot of fun, and very quick! It can also get people playing who may not necessarily enjoy trivia games on the average.

The game takes place over 7 rounds, each round consisting of a single question. Each player is given a marker and a dry erase board and 2 cardboard betting chips. The 1st question is read out loud and every question has a numerical answer. Each player writes down their best answer/guess on their dry erase board and after all the answers are written they are placed in order from smallest to largest on a green felt betting mat, somewhat like a Craps mat from a casino. Each answer depending on where it falls in the order has specific payout of odds.




The players look at the answers and then place there betting chips on answers that they think are correct. They can place their chips on two separate answers or on a single answer and nothing requires them to bet, although you can never lose your original two chips so there's no reason not to at least bet those.




After everyone has placed there bets the answer is read aloud and odds are paid out. Anyone who bet on the correct answer receives chips according to heir bet and the payout odds. So if you chose let's say a middle-ish answer with odds of 3 to 1 then if you'd placed 1 of your cardboard chips you'd receive 3 poker chips. In the successive rounds you can not only place your two cardboard chips, but you may if you wish increase your bets by placing your poker chips under the cardboard ones. However if you choose the wrong answer you lose these chips, while obviously if you choose the right answer you get even more chips!

After seven rounds the person with the most chips wins. It's a very simple game and while it wasn't a huge hit, everyone certainly seemed to enjoy playing. The game accommodates 7 players, after which you can of course form teams to increase player numbers which I've heard is pretty fun; but I have yet to play it with more than 7. The game is great for a number of reasons. The first is that people who may not like trivia games but love gambling will probably be sucked in due to the betting mechanic. Second and this is my favorite part, is the fact that you don't actually have to know the answers to win; you just have to be able to guess who in your group will since there is no requirement to bet on your own answer.




I definitely give this game a big thumbs up, I'm pretty fond of it, its' certainly worth checking out; I've put a link below to the Board Game Geek page.


Wits & Wagers

Dead Pokey!

So you've all heard me talk about re-doing the Empire army of our friends and very likely never seen any progress on it. Well I finally got done re-building the big Spear unit. It started out as 20 Halberd's and 20 Spearmen with command models, but as every single tip of every weapon was broken I had to replace them. With no place on the net that I could find replacement Halberd's I went with Spears since I already had a ton of Pikes for a Dogs of War army I was going to do once upon a time. I have to repaint them and finish building the custom bases for the unit to end up on later but I thought I'd help myself by showing the progress.

Note that these are the older models, 5th or 6th edition I'm not sure, but they are a fair bit smaller than the current models produced by GW. I had to drill out every hand on every model except the musician. Now you know what took so long. Sheesh...

Bugman Ho!

So here, just days after I literally finished my final Dwarf model to be painted and completed the entire army I receive a package from the UK. A wonderful listener by the name of Tony send me a wonderful little gift to thank me for the years of work we put into the show. It is heartily appreciated! I was touched and I just had to share it. Thanks Tony!

Slayer Pirates

Just in time for a tournament on Saturday, (about 8 hours in time) I finished my unit of 15 Slayer Pirates. The pics here are junk. Oddly I got rid of my Blackberry and got an iPhone only to find that the Blackberry is the far superior phone for photo's. Oh well, you can't win them all!

Regardless I thought I'd throw the pics up to show that I finished them! Along with my last cannon which I didn't take a picture of I no longer have any unpainted Dwarfs! I'd say that's cause for a celebration!

Long Drongs Pirates

So in an Episode not all that long ago I discussed attempting to finish every Dwarf model I owned. At the time that consisted of a Organ Gun/Cannon and Crew, 15 Long Drong Slayer Pirates and a Character. I've since completed the War Machine and Crew and Character. I have not however completed the Pirates. I hate skin. I'm also big on procrastination. However since there is a tournament on the 20th of August that I plan on attending with them and finishing so few models should have been a simple task. I have had these guys sitting base coated for somewhere round 3 weeks now. So last night in an effort to push myself I demand that I finish them in groups by sculpts. I finished these two last night before bed. I still need to base them and put on a dull coat but at least its some progress. Finally...

The Equipment

The equipment has been sold! :)
Thanks to everyone who inquired, hopefully the new owners will get it going soon as they were expressing interest in doing a WHF cast.

Going a Questing!

So as you may be able to guess this post will be about a game. Quite specifically Warhammer Quest! Possibly one of the greatest GW games ever produced in my humble opinion. Well, mine and just about everyone I know that plays Warhammer, and those that haven't played it would probably soon say that it is the best shortly after they play it for the first time. Yes, it is just that much fun!

For those that do not know Games Workshop worked with Milton Bradley in the late 80's (well 1989 to be specific) and produced a wonderful mass market fantasy board game called Hero Quest followed very shortly after in the same year by Advanced Hero Quest.





These were amazing games for what they were. They came with gobs of great looking components, fun fantasy gameplay that was borderline roleplaying like D&D and it was a nice simple introduction into the Warhammer world with some pretty simple mechanics. As a child I never received either game but from what I heard they were a blast to play and now fetch a fair price on eBay. However due to the fact that they were mass market games they enjoy nowhere near the prices that Warhammer Quest does.

See in 1995 Games Workshop took what they had learned working with Milton Bradley and said "We can do this better ourselves." and from that decision comes this amazing game. To say it was full of components seems pretty weak sauce, its a see it to believe it type thing.



See? Now you believe me. The game built off of everything that the other two games did but also jumped full force into the Warhammer hobby. The plastics were all gray and no longer colored so they really begged to be painted. The game introduced the stat line from Warhammer that we're all so familiar with now. The board was modular and so every game you played with vary and be different in some way or shape. There were more treasures, more monsters, more roleplay and more complex rules. This was a gamers game and nobody questioned it. The problem is that it had a very short lifespan. As I said earlier it was released in 1995 and succinctly went out of print (OOP) in 1998 so only had an active shelf life of 3 years. For a hobby game that isn't terribly long.

The game was built on a fairly basic premise that we all know. The dungeon crawl. You get a group of adventurers who go into a dungeon, stab the bad guys, sometimes save the innocents and always, ALWAYS grab the loot.



The mechanics were generally quite simple and straightforward. You moved, you explored, monsters appeared, you fight and either win and get treasure or die and the game is over. Thew wonder of the game is that you could easily play one off games like you could in Hero Quest that would take roughly 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Very simple and fairly quick. The glory was that you could add the roleplay rules and expand your character. Where in Hero Quest you could only take treasures from dungeon to dungeon this system allowed you to level up your character and watch them grow. They gained skills and fantastic treasures. They went to town and had more adventures on the way and once they were there.

I have never played this game with someone who afterward didn't love it. I'm sure my wife would make an exception to that rule which is exactly why I would never play it with her. With the short shelf life of the game and the ludicrous popularity and zealous actions of people like me to get it the game can now in a compete state fetch anywhere from $200-300 USD. My copy is incomplete and I managed to get lucky and only pay around $80 USD in 2003 or 2004, I can't remember when I actually got the copy. I had a copy years before that sadly was stolen out of my car one day. I cried. Literally... I would've been happier if they'd stolen the car and left the game on the sidewalk.

The game was supported pretty heavily by GW too which made it seem more shocking when they suddenly cut it off. There were 9 different character packs released in case you didn't' want to play with just the Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf and Wizard. There were also two more that were released as Mail Order Only packs. There over 30 articles adding rules, material, scenarios, campaigns and ideas between White Dwarf and Citadel Journal. It had its own mini publication Deathblow that ran for 3 issues near the end of the games life cycle. Lair of the Orc Lord and The Catacombs of Terror.




Anyway, I bring all of this up to make a point. I was rummaging around in my games area about a week ago and ran across mine. Its in a toolbox now, the original box (for which you can see the art at the top of this post) long ago having been destroyed. The roleplay book is in a 3 ring binder as we used it to the point that it literally fell apart. Also as the gameplay picture above shows a set that is all still unpainted mine is too. When I ran across it I realised its been almost 3 years since I played it. I was hit with a sudden need. I decided that I shall paint my set finally. No simple task as it has over 85+ models in it that require painting. I've also started scrounging forums so that I can obtain the few models that I am missing to make the set complete. I've already rounded up quite a bit. My goal is to paint my set for Halloween at which point I will invite a group of 4 friends over and we will play the games main campaign which is a 3 level dungeon. Its got me REALLY excited.



I also plan to bring it with my to Adepticon in 2012 and on Friday night and probably Saturday night run some games of it outside of the Fantasy hall for fun. I feel extremely confident in saying that it will not be hard to find players at all. So you can keep your eye on this blog to follow my progress. By the end of August I should have obtained all the models and throughout September I'll be working on it. Yes I know I should be working on my Skaven army but this thing has really gotten into my head. In the end if you've never played this game I can't recommend it highly enough. If you have played it but its been a while I highly recommend you drag it out as I'm doing. I own a TON of games and this is easily on the top of the list as being rates a full out 10! Warhammer Quest, go get some.

I've tossed a link to Board Game Geek's webpage for it. BGG is probably one of the most useful Boardgaming websites ever and I highly recommend its use. It can be somewhat confusing at first but the amount of information there is amazing. Check it out.

Link to Board Game Geek:
Warhammer Quest