Category: Wargames
Wargaming in Seoul – Orc Town
A while back I talked some about places where you can pick up different wargame supplies in Seoul. One place in particular was Orc Town. They recently packed up and moved to another location, so I thought I’d give them a visit and check out the new store.
Orc Town is now in the southeastern part of Seoul in Dongok I-dong. If you take subway line 3 and get off at the Maebong station, Exit 4, head south a few blocks alongside an apartment complex. Go past a main T intersection and one block west, you’ll eventually hit the store. It is now in the basement of a small business complex.
Be sure to look for the small sign on the side of the building over the basement stairway.
It’s certainly much bigger than the old shop. There is a small storage section where folks can leave their models in personal lockers for a fee. This is pretty nice for regulars as they don’t have to lug their models around to the store.
The new place has more space to play, with a side room just for gaming holding several tables. From what I remember, the gaming section here has almost double the number of tables from the old place. They also have a few shelves with store terrain to allow players to dabble in some different scenery layouts.
They seem to still carry similar products, including Infinity, Bolt Action, Firestorm Armada, a few Napoleonics and a smattering of other historical kits. There are also some Flames of War miniatures and some alternate 15mm WW2 sets. However Orc Town is still very much a Games Workshop store. They carry lots of 40K stuff and a good number of Warhammer Fantasy minis. The store also has a full line of Citadel paints, spray primer, and other GW hobby modeling supplies.
Sadly, I still think prices above retail particularly for non-GW products. No real clue how the prices for GW products fare but I noticed some of the Warlord games stuff being well over MSRP. I have no idea why. Maybe they can’t get distributors to send stuff over and have to go the route of resale (which likely includes having to pay extra custom fees on merchandise).
They have an online store and I’m guessing with pre-orders, you could get more of a discount to bring it in line with other international distributors. For a handful of items, given that you’d have to pay international shipping charges, it seems ordering directly through Orc Town works out maybe a little cheaper. However I do wonder if making a large order, getting a big a discount from an online retailer, and just paying extra shipping might be more economical.
Nonetheless, if you want to pick up a few models and paints Orc Town seems to fit the bill. If you are a GW fan, it’s the only place to shop. I’d also give it points for allowing space in their store for gaming. Certainly a great way to get some feelers out to meet up with other fellow wargamers.
Armourfast house
While my Bolt Action platoons have been slowly shaping up, I really needed to get some terrain together. I went the super cheap route getting some paper buildings made which came out okay. However getting troops inside a building can be a key part of the game. My paper models have the roofs firmly affixed to help keep them a sturdy construction. While I can lift them up and plop them over figures to represent troops inside the house, having models with detachable roofs would have been better (seriously have to consider working on making some with foam board).
Looking around for some options, I ended up buying a tile roofed, 1/72 farm house from Armourfast. The kit is very nice if a little pricey at $14.50 USD. The model comes with varying colors so that you could literally assemble and play without the fuss of painting. I somewhat embraced this and opted to give the model a very basic one-over with some washes and drybrushing.
The house is simple to assemble and offers some decent options regarding the windows. There are a slew of window shutters you can use to represent open or closed windows. The roof and chimney can be put together without breaking a sweat. I will say however the instructions are a bit sparse and I did have to think through the construction a bit, as there are certain ways the walls for the house and chimney fit together. Nothing brain burning, but be sure to take a bit of time looking at how the pieces fit together.
Still, working with the plastic was a breeze and a welcome change compared to thick blocky houses of resin. The pieces fit together very well, with the roof section sitting fairly snug on the house walls and easily removable. Additionally, the inside walls have small tabs on them, allowing you to put in a second floor if needed. I cut a section of board to do just that and it fits nice and secure, allowing me to get a little more coolness out of the model.
The scale of the model is for 20 mm figures. I have one of my Plastic Soldier Co. mini in the some of the pics here to give it some scale. Honestly, the house would work just as fine with 28 mm figs. The doors would be a tad small but the space on the table is pretty beefy. Overall the model measures 14 cm by 9 cm, with the peak of the rooftop at 11 cm. I find true scale 28 mm buildings end up occupying too much tabletop real estate. Something a little smaller looks passable and doesn’t seem like a brick of plastic on the table. If you need a quick bit of terrain for your table and looking for something flexible, consider giving this house from Armourfast a look.
In and out of love with Flames of War
A long while back most of the World War II gaming I did was skirmish stuff with Battleground WW2. I really enjoyed the tactics of small unit infantry action and along with a tank or two that game handled it pretty well. Larger forces for smaller scales wasn’t something I was interested in. This attitude was mimicked with my 40K gaming also. After a while, interest in skirmish-type gaming sort of waned some playing 40K and BGWW2 a lot simultaneously. I was itching for something different.
Flames of War was making some noise as trial rules, making the rounds on TMP, and it caught my interest. 15mm wasn’t a scale I was too keen on painting, but the idea of company-sized engagements with combined arms sort of hooked me. What absolutely got me into FoW though was a local mini gaming club that met monthly at a local library. Those guys were really into historical gaming (and miniature wargames in general) and that really drove me to play Flames of War.
I enjoyed the combined arms aspect of the game, while still retaining a company-sized force. The telescopic range was also interesting with longer ranges being longer distances. Yeah, artillery really should be off board assets but with the idea of telescopic ranges, it allowed me to field a few guns on the table which looked cool. I liked the idea of target experience being the factor for how easy it was to inflict casualties. I liked the idea that hits on a unit could impede movement and shooting so that casualties weren’t the only means to cripple command of a force.
The game had abstract mechanics but they typically led to historical outcomes. FoW tanks ruled the battlefield and could cut through infantry. But get those infantry dug in, and within bulletproof cover, those stands are suddenly a bit tougher to dislodge. Throw in some AT assets and they become a nightmare for tanks to effectively attack, going back to using infantry to assault infantry in those conditions. I liked that.
Another big thing was we used tables with lots of cover. Oodles of terrain were used in our games. I’ve heard of nightmare stories of some employing 40K-like tournament tables, with not a lot of terrain. We never had that issue with plenty of cover and stuff to break up LoS. We also didn’t get into min/max forces with much of the group leaning towards historical company composition for certain periods (even tried a longer campaign with Operation Husky for the invasion of Sicily). So I think I lucked out getting with a great group of FoW players.
But there were rough spots with the game. A glaring aspect was the IGOUGO turn order and no real chance for opportunity fire. Even with pinning units, they could still throw out some dice in attacks. It all became a little predictable. Add to this the meta of super efficient lists, with guaranteed attackers and defenders for certain missions, you ended up with the potential for an alpha strike army. A player could move in and cripple certain forces within the first couple of turns (especially seen with light tank armies). There were specific counters to this, which sort of made for a game where players took relatively safe lists and weren’t willing to tinker around with something different.
Moving across the world, I packed up my Flames of War models. I ended up taking a few 15mm Russian troops with me in hopes of possibly painting up an infantry force. However I let them languish for the most part as I haven’t played the game in over 8 years. Not getting an opportunity to play certainly had diminished my desire to paint.
Another bit that soured me some on the game was Battlefront’s response to competition. They always seemed to accept folks were going to use other manufacturer’s models. However when Plastic Soldier Co. hit the scene with their 15mm kits, they completely changed their attitude going for a more restrictive policy for hosted tournaments. I don’t blame them. It’s their show and their rodeo with official tournaments. Yet given they release so many different rule and campaign books and have that as a source of revenue, it seemed a little bitter on their part rather than trying to offer a more competitive priced product.
So where does that leave me now? I’m getting the itch some to dabble in 15mm again. I’m feeling the call to paint up those Russians. I’m just not sure that Flames of War will be my go to for 15mm gaming any more.
The problem with LMGs in Bolt Action
I really enjoy Bolt Action. While it’s not a WW2 simulation it certainly is a fun skirmish game. As it’s been out a while, sure enough errata has slowly crept into it. However the lead designer, Alessio Cavatore, has a philosophy of trying to minimize errata. He really believes in saving it for rules that are unclear, as opposed to trying to fix problems in the game.
One thing that has stood out for a long time is the LMG. Being a tournament game, based on building forces with points, inevitably you are going to get people trying to get the most competitive army possible. As such, LMGs consistently never seemed to make the cut. As a team weapon at +20 points, it appears people just couldn’t justify the points for getting them.
There are some slight advantages with LMGs. Most notably is the range. At 30″ they can really reach out and touch someone. You can get pins put on a unit well before they can return fire. Even with penalties for firing on the move, long range, and having a target in light cover, with 6s you are rolling enough dice to get roughly a 50/50 chance to throw on a pin.
I’m convinced LMGs were viewed in the light of max squads. They are the only way to add some firepower to a full unit. Given LMGs are team weapons, having 2 extra dice would be roughly equivalent to having 2 more rifles in a squad. From that perspective, paying +20 points for a LMG works out. The 2 extra dice being similar to spending another 20 points to add two more men.
This falls apart though when you aren’t looking at max squads. A regular 5 man squad with a LMG compared to spending an equivalent 70 points for 7 riflemen, you actually throw out less dice. Due to the team weapon rule, you only get 6 fire dice. Ignoring that 7 man squads can take more casualties and pitch more dice into an assault, you still come out on top with fire dice compared to buying a LMG with the same points.
The cost for LMGs are broken. Sadly, it’s not something that will be addressed either (or at least until Bolt Action 2). But for a competitive tournament scene, it’s odd that LMGs are not encouraged more to be included in a force list. This also smacks right in the face of historical composition of infantry squads. LMGs were pretty much standard armament to compliment infantry. So a couple of ideas to consider…
Drop the team weapon – I did this for my BA sci-fi conversion. With no loader needed, you are at least matching the number of dice that a 7 man rifle squad is rolling. So that 5 man squad with a LMG generates the same amount of fire dice for the same amount of points.
Lower the cost of LMGs – The other answer is lowering the points. One suggestion is paying only 5 points. At first this seems too cheap. However if you take into consideration the team weapon rule, you are only generating 1 more die for shooting when comparing a LMG to 2 riflemen. Looking at this, +5 points for LMGs match very well against troops armed with BARs or assault rifles which generate a similar number of extra fire dice.
Of the two I am leaning towards dropping the team weapon rule. Maybe only have a penalty if it’s the last person in a squad. The only reason I am leaning this way is I like keeping points for models roughly similar. That way if in the incredibly unusual situation I actually hit up a tournament sometime, I am not scrambling to adjust my points. This is the only reason however. Looking over the numbers, keeping it a team weapon and lowering the cost to +5 points is actually a better solution.
I’ll put money on the point cost of LMGs being addressed in an updated rulebook. Till then I guess I’ll have to tinker with them to make them more cost efficient.
2015 gaming (and some blogging) resolutions
Another year has rolled around. Looking back I dabble in a lot of different gaming topics. I’m sort of all over the place. Unfortunately it does leave of a lot of unfinished projects lying around. Especially with my miniature wargaming, I’ve probably bitten off more than I can chew. So I’m hoping this year to get some more focus with my hobby.
Get Pacific terrain done – Working with 20mm WW2 stuff, I really want to get more Pacific-themed terrain finished. I made a decent stab at western European buildings and such, but my Pacific terrain is lacking. Having some buildings and jungle terrain is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but have never gotten around to. I need to rectify that.
Paint at least 80% of what I own – This isn’t monumental but it’s a heavy load to lift. I’ve accumulated a lot of different armies over the past few years and I really want to get them painted. I still have a 15 mm sci-fi platoon to paint up, along with a bunch of bugs, APCs, and a few tanks. Getting those done would be nice.
I have made a ton of progress with my Bolt Action stuff. I’ve got Germans, British, Japanese, and Pacific US Army platoons painted all in 20 mm. I’ve got a British paratroop platoon to work on. Along with some more armor kits to paint up. The big task will be to get my 28mm Russians painted. Not sure how much of a dent I can make into those ruskies at the end of the year, but I want to try.
I’ve also got a Relthoza Firestorm Armada fleet to work on, not to mention my SAGA Viking and Saxon warbands, and a Flames of War Russian infantry division to finish. The latter is really on my back (back, back) burner as I haven’t played FoW in years. I might look into an alternative ruleset to FoW so I can kickstart my desire to get back into WW2 15mm
Find skirmish sci-fi rules I like… – Over the years I’ve picked up several rules for sci-fi wargames, including making some alternatives to existing rules. There are quality rules out there but nothing that I quite like. I was gung ho to jump into Beyond the Gates of Antares however there are some aspects to the rules that I find clunky. Still on the prowl for something I would enjoy more.
…or write some of sci-fi rules of my own. – A few thoughts on a rule set have been rolling around my head though. I’d like a platoon skirmish system that doesn’t require a ton of bookkeeping and charts. Maybe a bit of rules for some armor. I really want to dabble in a fog of war system too. What I want is a little specific to what’s out there, so I’m considering working on a set of rules of my own making.
Buy RPGs I’ll play – I’ve adopted this already in 2014 and will be sticking to it. Over the years I bought a lot of books. I ended up dumping most and decided from now on to get books for games I plan on playing. Savage Worlds will likely be on that list for some setting specific books. I’m on the fence for D&D though. No clue if I will be running a game any time soon. I’ve got the starter set and will probably get the PDFs bound, but don’t see me buying the core books unless I can get a game going. Unfortunately, my group is pretty keen on other RPGs so not sure if 5E is in the cards for me.
Get more board game reviews done – I have a decent collection of board games. I really want to get a good chunk of my games reviewed. Very slowly I’ve been building a base of reviews and linking them to the Board Game Geek site. I enjoy making a contribution to that community. I might have to dabble in some tabletop wargame reviews also.
Compile my Expeditions of Amazing Adventure posts – There is an entire campaign setting there. Throw them together with a map. Flesh out some details on locations. Add a few more locations of interest. Yeah, there is something I could do with that for a fantasy setting. I want to get that done, along with adding a few more locales.
Revisit ASTRO Colony – A long while back I worked on a classroom social studies exercise, where students were different factions of a space colony, all trying to be the lead party in an election so they could gain resources and goals specific for their faction. They had to work with other faction groups to gain a simple majority by vote. It was an exercise to illustrate the how unyielding positions on certain platforms, and still being able to compromise, is a difficult issue for political parties. Especially if their own goals go against the immediate needs of the general public.
At it’s core, I’m happy with how ASTRO colony worked out. However I really need to clean the document up more. The presentation of the material is also unwieldy. I want to get an updated version of that done.
So that’s about it. It’s a pretty long list of goals. Hee. It’ll be interesting how many of these resolutions I can keep for the upcoming year. I sincerely hope folks have a wonderful New Year, and get a lot of gaming in with family and friends over 2015.
2014 state of blog address
Earlier this year marked a big milestone hitting 300 posts. Since then another year has passed by and I looked over my blog stats to get a feel for how 2014 went. When I first started blogging I was really focused on 4E D&D and doing a lot of posts related to running my games. That petered out some as I began to post my other gaming interests, including miniature wargames and board games. So looking over the traffic for 2014, I’ve come to some conclusions…
RPG posts are popular – No surprise here but RPG posts are the ones that get the most traffic. As I’ve waned some on posting RPG-centric posts, a decline in traffic has been noticed too. My wargame posts are likely too much of a gaming niche (and too generic) to garner much interest from folks.
D&D is king – I’m certain another decline with blog traffic is my shift away from D&D. I also realize there’s a draw to hearing about people starting campaigns, and tackling issues of running a game with a new system is narrative that resonates more than rehashing past games. There’s probably more of a drive for information about wanting to learn about playing a new game, rather than reading about systems they are comfortable running. I expect a popular topic for a lot of RPG blogs in 2015 will be stuff on 5E. There’s no getting around that.
Savage Worlds has some bite – I’ve been more focused on running Savage Worlds and the posts and reviews I’ve done for the game get a fair amount of traffic. Seems a couple of blog aggregators for Savage Worlds have also picked me up. Having a review for Broken Earth highlighted over on PEG’s site helped some too. Currently my group is happy with switching genres and going with more episodic campaigns, so SW fits the bill with keeping a uniform generic system for flipping back and forth with different games.
Board game reviews are decent – Despite not having the reach of RPG posts, board game reviews certainly have a draw. I throw my stuff up on Board Game Geek so that certainly doesn’t hurt drumming up traffic. I tend to review games I’ve vetted some before picking up for my collection. As such most of them are games I like. However occasionally I buy something on a whim and at times get a few lackluster games. I also dabbled a bit posting about various kickstarters, but unfortunately I seem to get a flood of requests to promote other campaigns. I’d love to highlight more stuff coming out in the community, but I do this as a hobby and with my limited time it’s hard to commit to promoting different crowd-funding projects.
In summary, I dig 5E and am eager to try it out but right now my gaming group is keen to do other stuff. I made a commitment to trim back my RPG purchases and only buy books I will play. I broke that getting the 5E Starter set but at $20 it’s pretty hard not to bite. I’m holding off getting the hardback books though. Playing 5E just isn’t in the cards for me right now.
Heh, I’m certain I’ll also lose a bunch of followers switching over to WordPress too. However Blogger just wasn’t doing it for me any more and I was having a hard time getting things to work with G+. I still need to check out a lot of my older posts, but for the most part everything seems to be working okay with the transfer. So I’ll just be chugging along here with posts on miniature wargaming and board games, occasionally throwing some RPG stuff into the mix. Unfortunately as I’m all over the place with gaming, it’s hard to capture an audience, especially as folks seem to have a primary interest in RPGs. I just have to accept I’ve slipped into being a tiny blog about gaming. And I’m okay with that.
Cigar Box battle mats review
Ever on the quest to find some cool gaming mats I stumbled across Cigar Box Battle Mats and had to pick a few up. A while back I had gotten some Hotz mats for my Bolt Action and Firestorm Armada games. The star field mat was okay while the green mat was a little lackluster. Further, they were treated felt. The surface looked like it could handle pilling but it was stiff and kept wrinkles if folded up.
The battle mats from Cigar Box are made out of a thin fleece material. It’s very supple and has a sheen surface that will not snag on miniature bases. Most come in 4′ x 6′ with a few mats measuring 36″ x 36″. You can machine wash the mats and the surface appears to be screen printed making it look pretty resistant to your normal wear and tear.
The star field mat is very muted, but has a nice generic look. All of which allows you to plop down whatever terrain you have and not look too out of place clashing with something printed on the mat itself.
The generic grass field has a nice textured look to it. As the material is so yielding, you can put hills under the mat. This is something I found an issue with the Hotz mats as the treated felt was rather stiff. For a basic open field, the Cigar Box mat looks good with just a little contrast to break up the entire surface.
Digging through the store, there are also more elaborate patterns which can highlight roads, fields, and forests. A few even are set up to portray classic civil war battles, but could work for different historical engagements too. There is a pretty impressive variety and fortunately some generic mats are also available.
I think one ding to the mats would be that you’d have to double up if needing a 4′ X 8′ mat as the size options are limited. The mats are also ideal for free miniature movement as there are no hex or grid options.
The service was quick and I got my order via international air mail about a week after it was shipped. They were also very quick to respond to any queries via email. I highly recommend these mats. They are durable, provide a good gaming surface, and look great. Well worth picking them up for your games.
Litko game tokens as holiday gifts
Say you want a stocking stuffer for your nerdy, significant other, or want to give a small gift to a gamer pal. Litko makes quality plastic acrylic game tokens and other miscellaneous game items, offering a great gift for them. A long while back I made no bones about my preference using tokens and markers around the table. Having a tactile marker to represent a condition, bonus, or temporary status is great over just using pen and paper. So I’ve had a long affair of enjoying Litko products for years now. They’ve got wonderful stuff for just about any gamer you’d like to get a gift for.
The wargamer – They offer tons of sets and individual packs for tokens. From command and casualty markers, to range band and blast templates, Litko offers some fantastic tokens and markers.
The board game fan – Litko has branched out and now provides game token sets for popular board games too. Imagine spicing up your Pandemic game with these tokens…
Not to mention some really wonderful X-Wing token and marker sets…
And I’m certain Netrunner players would enjoy having these on the table…
The RPG player – Litko also offers a lot of sets and tokens for RPG games also. You can find lots of tokens to mark temporary conditions….
and complete sets are also available like this one for Savage Worlds.
They offer some more interesting items like paper figure miniature stands…
or markers for indicating which character miniature is holding a torch…
And other bits for gamers – Litko also makes a variety of bases for miniatures and other really clever items like counter dials….
and a variety of portable dice towers which can be taken apart and thrown in a zip lock bag. Perfect for those gaming tourneys.
So I encourage folks to give them a look. Several online retailers also carry their products. And if you aren’t sure about what they’d really like, well just give them a gift certificate instead. Hope folks enjoy the holidays with family and friends (and get some games in too).
Firestorm Armada terrain and MARs summary sheets
Some big news from Spartan Games is that they’ve opted to release all of their games as free downloadable pdfs. I completely understand why they did this. Likely they looked long and hard at the costs associated with printing, publishing, and warehousing hardback books and figured it just was better to go the digital route. I figure they are pushing more to sell their models as a revenue stream over selling rules.
As a long time rule book buyer for Firestorm Armada I’m a little torn. On one hand I’m happy as this will certainly get more people playing the game. On the other hand I feel a little burned buying another book that is released later as a free pdf. This happened for version 1.5 and now with 2.0. I guess on the plus side, I can finally take a peek at Dystopian Wars and Planetside without having to pony up any cash.
As the new pdfs are available, I revisited my QRS and updated it with better scans of the charts. While I was at it I also made a simple terrain effect summary sheet to get all the terrain rules on a single sheet. I decided to also whip up the MARS rules onto a front and back cheat sheet. I still need to figure out how to tweak that sheet some as there is a ton of white space. Both are really bare bones and fugly, but at least you can get all those rules at your fingertips to pass around the game table. All of this stuff is also over in the downloads section. Enjoy!
Outrider Kickstarter wrapping up.
Outrider from Dice Fist Games has a successful Kickstarter that is ending soon. Set in an apocalyptic setting after a severe food shortage, players are car driving, mercenaries for hire assigned to protect truck shipments of food that pass through the the wastelands of Texas. It’s billed some as a board game but really is a miniature wargame using cards for cars. With souped up engines, welded armor plates, and machine guns strapped to the hood, players duke it out seeing who will be the king of the roads.
The game uses a clever system of assigning die types to various car characteristics to represent engine power, defense, driver skill, and weaponry. Players distribute a single D6-D12 for each of the car attributes with a higher die type translating into a more effective stat. Each car type also has base stat bonuses which add to the die type value, allowing players to rely on base car characteristics plus a lower assigned die type if seeking to tweak out a different attribute more.
Players resolve their turn one at a time, using a special maneuver deck. Players program the movement for their turn and then flip through the cards one at a time on their turn to move. It’s a rather simple, elegant system over relying on movement using a measuring tape. As each card is turned over, some may require maneuver tests. If successful the car continues, otherwise some mishap could happen.
During each maneuver card placement, there is an opportunity to fire weapons at opponents. Again, rather than using a ruler to measure out ranges and arcs of fire, a special set of cards is used. If the target is within the boundaries (or corridor of fire) of these cards, it’s hit. Then it is a matter of rolling the weaponry attack value versus the target’s armor. As with all the rolls and checks you have to equal or better a target number, with damage tokens used to record how much a beating your car can take before it’s a bullet-ridden wreck.
There are several Kickstarter add ons from additional cars to varying types of weapons, drivers, and equipment. It has a smattering of feel along the lines of X-Wing and Wings of War, but I totally dig the theme of the game. It’s successfully funded too, but will wrap up in a matter of days.
As the Kickstarter goes, I am a bit torn on the final product. While the quality of the cards and dashboards look top notch, I am disappointed with the various counters. It seems they’ve stuck with the concept of a better print and play version. The counters scream being printed on thick cardboard counters. The dashboard would really shine if a plastic dial was used instead of a separate counter. Instead you have double printed tokens on cardstock, which sort of makes the components fall flat. I totally understand the guy needs to make sure they can deliver and all those extra bits would likely mean the base cost of the boxed game would creep up more. But man, I’m hoping another publisher picks this up and gives the component quality some love.
Nonetheless, it looks like a fun game that straddles the mini wargame and board game camps pretty well. The box version seems they will have nice cards printed on good stock. At the very least, I am going in for the print and play version. If looking for a sleek version of Car Wars, or a more road warrior themed version of Wings of War/X-Wing, Outrider looks like it’s right up your alley.
Geek Ken 