A Spate of New Purchases

As one can see looking at the middle column under New Game Acquisitions, I have been on a bit of a spending spree recently. Thanks to Petries and their monthly 15% off I was able to pick up Quarriors after a recommendation by Cameron and Rebecca. I used the Borders close-out 40% off to get D&D Players Essentials: Heros of the Fallen Lands. I then browsed a used book rack at Gamer’s Haven and found the old West End Games Star Wars Miniatures Battles and Heir to the Empire and Dark Force Rising sourcebooks. Finally, I was in Barnes & Nobles and found Smallville in hardcover for a mere $2. Each will be the subject of a review/commentary in the near future.

Spring Gaming

After a long time of no gaming (funny how housework/yard work/kids soccer games seems to dominate weekends) this weekend featured a return to some game time.

Clone Wars Starter Set

First up was a game of Star Wars Miniatures using the Youngest Jedi’s newly purchased Clone Wars Starter Set.  The Youngling now has the right amount of math skills to be able to figure out his own numbers.  He still is a bit young to understand all the text on the cards relating to special powers but If it is explained to him at the beginning of the game he tends to remember a good deal of it.  That and a little bit of prompting during play makes it a most enjoyable gaming experience.  The Youngling still uses the minis for pure imagination adventures, but he seems much more interested in playing the game too. Even Mrs. RMN was impressed with his zeal for play!

Buffalo Wings

The second game of the day was a solo play of Buffalo Wings.  Set up was Scenario 16.3 Italian Sports Planes which featured an Finnish Fiat G.50 with a Veteran pilot versus a Russian I-16 with a Regular pilot.  The first few turns were a relearning experience for me and they went a bit slow, but as the cobwebs were dusted off the later turns went faster and better. Starting in a neutral head-on encounter, the battle became a climbing dogfight as each tried to get superior position on the other.  A few shots were traded, usually at longer ranges with very little chance of a hit.  The dogfight ended in a draw when the Finnish pilot extended to disengage after the better-turning I-16 had tailed him for a few turns.  All-in-all it was refreshing to get back into a J.D. Webster Airpower game.  I found the initial learning curve a bit hard, but after a few turns it was clicking along quite well.  Buffalo Wings would serve as a great intro game to the Airpower series.

Battlestar Galactica

Finally, I was messing around with BSG: The RPG the other day.  In particular I was experimenting with the starship combat system.  One important concept in combat is that range is relative.  This works well for one-vs-one but what if you have a pair of Vipers flying CAP for a stray freighter when the Cylon Raiders come after it?  After messing around with a few concepts on paper I hit upon the idea of using range templates.  Each ship has a template with range circles around.  As each ship moves relative to another the templates are moved.  When they are “together” at Skirmish Range they are totally overlapped.  I fought a small battle with the Vipers protecting the freighter against two pairs of Raiders.  It seemed to work well; the templates can be used without adding to the existing rules.  Indeed, they serve as a simple visual aid and cues to rules.  I still want to experiment with the presentation.  Maybe I will create a generic template or maybe ship-specific ones.

RPG Combat

Being a wargamer first and a pen & paper RPG player second, combat has always played a major role in my RPGs.  These days there are as many combat systems as there are RPG mechanics.  Much like I did a long time ago, I think a comparison is in order.  This comparison of various combat systems will look at two areas of combat, personal and mass (or unit-level) combat.  For each comparison I will use a mid-level character (whatever that means!).

No production timeline promised, but I will look at the following games:

• Classic Traveller Book 1 (Personal)
• Classic Traveller Book 4: Mercenary (Mass)
• Classic Traveller: Striker (Mass)
• Mongoose Traveller (Personal)
• Mongoose Traveller Book 1: Mercenary (Mass)
• Hammer’s Slammers (Mongoose Traveller) (Personal)
• Cortex System Serenity and Battlestar Galactica (Personal)
• Star Wars Saga Edition Core Rulebook (Personal)
• Star Wars Saga Edition Clone Wars Campaign Guide (Mass)
• Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition (Personal/Mass)

Is that enough to start with?