A Gentleman's Game?

Whats in a game?

Do differing types of games make us play differently, and behave differently whilst playing them?

Does how you win the game, thus affect how you strive to play it?

Does it matter if you have fun actually playing it, or are we just there as an exercise in trying to win, not necessarily at all costs, but the win is foremost in our minds, and without that win, the game is less 'fun'?

Do we sit there staring at our man dollies, trying to figure out the exact stratagem that will hopefully work, at the same time trying to run over in our minds the probability of what the Dice Gods are going to do us as our little chance-cubes clatter across the table... their results lifting us in joy or sending us crashing to the depths of despair...

Does it matter if our opponent enjoys the game, whether they win or lose? Does how the game makes us play and thus act, affect this?

Come on Smithers - your move ol' chap...

Having a physical opponent introduces a social aspect to the game, giving us someone to interact with as we play the game. This then to me should be an important part of the game, as if it isn't important, then I may as well just play computer game against a faceless opponent, whether 'real' or AI...

There's a whole gamut of games available to play out there, some perhaps by their nature being more competitive than others.

Anyone who has followed this blog will probably know I've been playing a lot of Flames of War over the last couple of years, with probably an average of roughly a game per week. Sadly my win/loss record is not the best, despite my best efforts to learn the game, its tactics and try and mitigate my luck. (It really bugs me when people say you can make your own 'luck', by learning the odds and playing accordingly, hmm, I'm not so sure... if you roll one dice needing a 6 and get it, that's lucky in my book! If you roll two dice, needing either of them to be a 3 or more and roll snake eyes, then that's unlucky).

Flames of War, is clearly a tournament game. You typically win the game, by either capturing an objective (or conversely defending one), or breaking (destroying) your opponents force... However, how well you manage to do this, scores you points for the game, that then can be thrown into the tournament pot to see who's the better player overall over several games...

... and I think its this tournament mechanism that can lead to 'frustration'... not only can you beat your opponent, which is fair enough, but you can morally grind him into the dust by getting the best score too...

... or perhaps it encourages ridiculous do-or-die defenses, when the game is clearly already won by one side, the other guy stubbornly refuses to give up, in some Hitler/Stalin inspired 'not one step back' approach... perhaps the hopes of stealing a point off the opponent for the tournament score level, encouraging this playing style...

Not one step back!

I think its this aspect of the game that's perhaps getting to me, as I like the game for the most part otherwise - I like the look, scale, miniatures, and game play for the most part - a couple of things niggle me but I can live with them...

For me I think, there is clearly a point a which the game is won, most people can see this a mile off... a gentleman at this point would concede defeat and resign, he wouldn't keep playing on manically. Having offered up his resignation, I wouldn't expect his opponent to force him to play on, just so he can score more tournament points... so maybe the game and I are at odds? Its not my opponents fault, its the way the game is making him play?

When this scenario is played out repeatedly, game by game, week after week... is it any wonder the player who loses the most becomes more and more frustrated despite his best efforts?

When you play the same opponent with the same army repeatedly and keep losing, how long before the nervous tick develops?

Cartoon fun .. inspired by Larry Leadhead - thanks Larry for the laughs!

The reality is some players have a better gamer's mind than others, perhaps simply being more intuitive, quicker learners, better able to assimilate the requirements to pull off the wins repeatedly; the optimum force composition, tactics and probability to succeed in getting these wins.

This is clearly shown by the same names appearing at the top of the tournament rankings, with us other lesser mortals down the other end of the tables as also-rans, patsies and whipping boys...

So I do not deny there is a skill level here, probably not something I will ever have in abundance....

So perhaps to stay sane in a leisure time activity that is meant to be fun and enjoyable, and distract us momentarily from the stresses of real life and work, I may have to find a game that better suits my approach to gaming? Or perhaps concede I am simply not a good player generally, resign my gaming commission, hang up my dice, rulers and templates and simply paint for fun, and perchance become what GW and Mr Johnson et al, wants me to be ... a 'Collector'... Perish the thought!

Or perhaps the game can still be fun and enjoyable if approached in a differing manner, must we strive to beat and crush our opponent...?

I am not just poking the finger at FoW here... I assume other tournament orientated games have similar issues; WFB/40K? I suppose any game which score you points for how well you did or didn't do, will be affected by the problem...?

I cannot help recall the introduction of the Black Powder rules, with its 'Gentlemanly' approach to the game... with units not even having a points value... the whole thing being scenario driven... and played out for the fun of the experience of the game, with the winner or loser, almost not seeming to matter... it certainly seemed a more pleasant environment to game in...

I say, can you see where I dropped my die? Darned things over here somewhere...

Please excuse this cathartic ramble... there are times when one needs to clear ones head...

I think a gaming break over the Xmas period and an indulgence of painting simply for the enjoyment of it, thanks to Curt's Painting Challenge, is the way for me to chill out and to return to sanity...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year... Hope you get all the man dollies, paints and brushes you need to keep you smiling!

The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug! The price of plastic...

Only a few days before the release of the much awaited sequel in the Hobbit trilogy...

Just thought I'd check out whats happening on the GW site, just out of curiosity.... BANG!

Sure enough, only one movie and one year on and prices have jumped again... info from GWs New Zealand portal...

One year ago and the price of 10 plastic toy soldiers had jumped, then, to an astronomical $NZ65...

To be totally eclipsed by the latest incarnation... 10 plastic soldiers now setting you back a cosmologically eye watering $NZ80 !!!

Sheer lunacy, and frankly taking the p*ss!

Oh well, I can still enjoy the movie, and look on bemused at the current price of a plastic soldier from the GW stable...

What do you predict for next years post movie releases? Will it crack $NZ100 for 10 soldiers, ...nah I reckon they'll go for $NZ120, for 8...

[UPDATE - had to share this -

brilliant! ]

9 months later...

... Nope, not what you were expecting from the title! The 'firm clashing of two bricks' saw to that possibility being negated, many moons ago... ;-)

No, in this case, a combined 9 months of waiting, for an order, never to arrive from MaelstromGames, and then never to be honoured by the new company set up from the ashes of the old; Maunsfeld Gaming...

... and then trying to explain the whole farce to my bank; ANZ, and VISA...

ANZ bank

 ...about a whole pile of Flames of War goodies that never materialized...

Flames of War

...even after getting a nudge from Ian at the Blog with No Name, who called at the store, on my behalf to see what was going on... only to be 'fobbed off' ? Thanks again to Ian for his help.

But in one form, my persistence paid off ... I at least got my money back from VISA today... NZ$216 back in my account today! :-)

Now, what to spend it on! ;-)

Seriously though, some interesting lessons were learned, and cautions raised about ordering goods online, even from companies that you had dealt with successfully over a long period of time...

I am just grateful ANZ/VISA came through...

Still, I will also most certainly be intrigued to hear what eventually happens to the chap behind Maelstrom/Maunsfeld that allowed all the shenanigans to happen...

The good thing for me now is, the items I had been waiting for, and delayed buying in the meantime, in case they turned up after all, I can now confidently get on with sourcing... the 88's were the first of these...

The Hobbit on DVD - a tarnished experience...?

Yesterday saw the release here in NZ of the DVD of the The Hobbit movie, and predictably I went straight from work to pick it up from the store... and no doubt I'll be grabbing the extended version when it comes out too.

I'd love to have got the Blu-ray variety, but I haven't invested in that technology as yet...

So we had our dinner first, then, with lights down low (dark nights here now in NZ), and glasses charged (wine for adults and juice for kids) and crunchy nibbles within arms reach, we went back to Middle-Earth for the evening...

Still love it!

We all sang along with the dwarves with their moody sombre fireside song... great stuff, very moving - I must remember to get the audio movie soundtrack...

And yet there was one small, discomfort, and that was knowing that, even though I am not actively playing the game at the moment, there is still a bunch of models I would like to collect, yet am so diussallusioned with the whole thing because of GW's pricing policy, I now don't know whether I will bother, and that hard decision has ultimately spoiled my enjoyment of my favourite movie franchise...

So thank you, you greedy bastards at GW, for ruining my love for something I hold so dear as a hobbyist...

$NZ40 for a single dwarf king model...
$NZ100 for Radagast's sleigh...
$NZ100 for 6 Rivendell cavalry...
$NZ80 for Elrond (foot and Mounted)...

...all prices from GW website... just ridiculous...and worse still, most of it is 'Finecast' AKA finecost AKA failcrap... so even if you get the figures, chances are you will have a ton of work to get the figure prep'ed and looking good, see my prior review here

Hobby Funk!

For some reason I feel in a bit of a hobby funk at the moment... I haven't blogged much, and my perusal of blogs I follow and comment on has fallen off of recently. So I apologise to the gaming blogging community for my apathy..

The year seemed to start well with the Hobbit starter set arriving and getting me all excited to get it painted up.

I created a basic Goblin Town terrain board, and set to painting up the Goblins as part of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I got them about half done, but seemed to lose focus and interest... and opened up my pack of PSC half tracks and their conversion kits and set to making these up (mostly sitting out in the sun trimming and gluing with beer in hand, as I find it hard to spend weekend summer time inside painting). After completing their assembly, I then set to work making the PSC Tiger I kits I got at the same time as the half tracks. These went together well, and painting was commenced on these - painting is easy, a quick base coat spray , some camo stripes and a wash and you are virtually done...

And since I've been actively playing FoW for just about 18 months now, there will always be a quick and ready use for them!

But this weekend I hit a brick wall in my FoW-ing... 

 I have never been the best player, scraping out an odd win here and there in a mass of defeats, and as Paul summed up very well, in his article here; (written I suspect for my benefit), these defeats, whilst good to learn from, can also be somewhat demoralizing over time. Even Paul admitted to sulking once after I actually managed a rare victory over him. Sadly, I end up sulking just about every week! Not good for the mental state of affairs!

After Paul kindly offered to host me to a learning game, I had the usual occur; my dice were crap, while Paul seemed to pass every save that was important. Thus crushed again by either crap tactics, crap dice, or both... I slinked off home... wrestled with my thoughts, couldn't sleep, got up and thrashed about on EasyArmy at 2am, gave up and went back to bed... Got up feeling equally frustrated and decided 'bollox', I don't need to feel this way, just give it up...

So I ended up pulling out of Pauls FoW tournie that is only a week away. Yes I feel crap dropping Paul in it like this, but I think I'd feel even worse after screwing up in the tournie, so self preservation has kicked in, for my mental state...

I'll probably come back to it in time and have no plans to sell off my collection. I still like the game, the look and feel, the rules for the most part too. I still like the look of my troops for the game, (the German 'war machine' has always held a fascination for me, and the history of its action and ultimate defeat), and the time commitment getting them done would be poorly recompensed in a sale. So they will remain in the display case until I feel my Germans are worth dusting off again... and have a hope in Hell of getting a win...

So what next?

A change is as good as a rest they say... when I think back to gaming I really enjoyed I recall my Warmaster days from many years ago... Step forward to present and we have Hail Caesar and Black Powder, both rule sets derived from Warmaster, with their subtle differences reflecting scale and theatre of action.

So having recently received the Dark Ages/Medieval supplement for Hail Caesar from Warlord Games sale, my son and I broke out my medieval collection that has been gathering dust for many years, and set to with a balanced English Barons War 'civil war' loosely themed game.

So far we've got about part way through and done a few things wrong while I try and get used to the rules, and their differences from Warmaster and Black Powder, but its been fun and entertaining.

If it goes well, I'll try and get a brief battle report up on blog, as I have taken a few pics along the way.

As for painting, well I'll plod on and try and clear the back log on my painting table, finish the half tracks and Tigers anyway, and the Hobbit set, hopefully before the deadline end of the painting challenge, and see what comes up next... I made a start trimming and assembling my c18th WSS figures for Black Powder, from Wargames Factory. There's something wonderfully romantic about this period with their tricorne hats and frills, and no nonsense warfare, no messing about with skirmishers and squares, just get up there and give them what for ol' chap!

So that's more or less it for now though it still leaves me pondering about our hobby in general, and the mix of people who do it...

It has led me to conclude there are roughly 3 types of hobbyist:

The Gamer:

These chaps know the game rules inside out and the tactics of the game off by heart, and can probably look several moves ahead like some kind of chess champ. They probably manage a reasonably average level of dice luck too making them worthy tournament adversaries.

The Player:

These folks have a fair idea of the rules, and a general idea of what will work tactically, but are perhaps far for masters of the art! Their dice luck may not the best overall, and the combination of these two factors probably makes them bottom of the pile in the tournament stakes.

The Painter:

Loves the pomp and circumstance and look of the game, rather than the game play itself! Luck is rarely a factor! Wouldn't know where to sign up for a tournament!

In these rankings I am somewhere in the middle I guess, and I assume these are over generalisations, but its been fun pondering this dilemma, and perhaps will get me part way out of this current funk!

Best regards to all and thanks for reading my inane witterings.

Scott

The Hobbit - An EXpected Shafting!

Well after the sneak peaks of the pictures of the new hobbit releases that hit the internet the other day, I went down to the local GW to buy the mag (WhiteDwarf). I haven't bought one of these in many years, as the majority of what it offers doesn't interest me (WFB or 40k)... but I wanted to see the new Hobbit releases.

I have to say I was initially underwhelmed... the dwarfs are nice, and the orcs are OK. I didn't much care for the look of the new goblins but presumably this is how they look in the new movie (though why they changed them from how the Moria goblins look is anyone's guess  - I thought they were excellent!), and they'll be tied to the movie imagery when it comes to sculpting and releasing the figures...

I can only hope that with seeing the movie I will become more enamored of them?

But what horrified me are some of the prices! Especially for us poor saps in 'MiddleEarth' AKA New Zealand,... jeez you'd think they'd cut us a break or something, for goodness sake the darn movie was made here after all!!!

The new Ltd Ed boxed set is £75 in the UK, so at present conversion rates that's about $150NZ, but guess what the price is here???... $240NZ !!!!!!!!!!!! What have we done to deserve this! I don't for one minute believe it costs this much extra to ship it here for sale... especially when in the past, online resellers were able to supply at discounted UK retail price and with free shipping!

So we, especially here in NZ are getting royally shafted by GW's pricing policy. But hey no surprises there, its being going on a while it just hasn't impacted me as I haven't been one to buy many of their products recently...

The other issue is relative costs between makers of similar products - many other manufacturers are turning out high quality figures for their games and systems, typically for half the equivalent cost of the GW products... but GW have the IP on their Warhammer universe, fantasy and sci-fi, and the issue that affects me... the License for the Tolkien world of things... The former doesn't impact me, I gave up on those game systems many years ago...but the later does and I feel well and truly grabbed by the short and curlies...

So, time to reflect and consider...

At the end of the day I am going to want the figures and play the game, that's a given...

So I have to rationalize this somehow... at the end of the day, my hobby purchases are a luxury expenditure. I could do other things in my leisure / hobby time... I could play computer games which cost about a $100NZ per new one, and give about a weeks worth of entertainment before you've finished it... I could be into doing up cars and need the latest set of sport profile tyres, or racing shocks at $100s of a throw... I could be into horse riding and need a paddock, horse feed, stabling, vet bills etc etc... I could be into boats and sailing... I could into flying... I could be into fine wines and dining out...there's 101 other hobby things to do which all would cost me more than my current hobby does...

So I have to just accept I'll be part of this 'gold standard' of hobby gamers playing the Hobbit SBG... ;-). I say gold standard as it seems to me GWs target audience must be some kind of hobbyist elite in society who have endless money to throw at their hobby! Sadly not me, I will have to save up for and rationalize my purchases over time...

I'll bet there will not be so many sets bought for kids to play with at Xmas and smash up over the next few weeks, unless the parents have more money than sense, which could well be the case when it comes to Xmas presents for some kids... I wonder if in years to come Ebay will be full of smashed 'The Hobbit' models for sale, as it is now with LOTR ones???

So there I am, and here I stay, I wont jump ship just yet, as that's just cutting my nose off to spite my face... Thankfully I already have the White Council done from their previous set, and to be honest I prefer the older figures and poses. I can get the starting boxed set, that gives me all the named dwarfs, Bilbo, and the Goblins and King... I'll only need one Bolg, and maybe a goblin captain, the hunter orcs are close enough to the orcs I already have... The troll set would be nice to have, but I can see them featuring in one scenario once, so are they worth buying? Their only value will be as a 'collectable'...

I am going to take my time with this, enjoy the starter set and make use of the existing figures I have that I can use.

My only caveat - I'll be damned if I am going to pay prices here! If I can source abroad by fair means or foul, I will! I'll consider that a win, and a poke in the eye from me to GW!

So I am going to try and get hold of the Ltd Ed Starter set, and Rulebook to start with...

Whilst at the store I also picked up a Finecast 'Groblog' goblin. I decided I want to see what this new material was like myself... I'll report my findings in another post...

As a parting thought - at least I have no need to fill my games table with as many LandRaiders and Leman Russ's as I can, at $140NZ each...! ;-)

Damned GW does it again!

I popped into my FLGS (Toyworld, Paraparaumu) today to pick up a tin of GW's Chaos Black spray. Its one of the few GW things I routinely buy, obviously for undercoating figures, whether GW or not!

I little while ago it was about NZ$20 a can... more recently it had crept up to NZ$25 a can...

When I looked in the store I couldnt see any (normally kept in locked cabinet)... so I asked the staff if thay had any in back stock... She replied she didnt think they were stocking it anymore but she'd go and check with the boss... When she came back I was told that the price had jumped to NZ$32 a can and boss quite simply wasnt happy with having to get it in at that price and was looking for another supplier.

I quite understood, respected and applauded his position...yet I still needed an undercoating black matt spray paint, and had to troll round the local auto shops and DIY stores trying to find something suitable (I didnt wish to have to trail 50km down to my nearest GW store in Wellington just for a can a spray paint.)

I found a product in same size can for NZ$20 in an auto shop, but I'll have to find some old crappy models to try it out on first before I risk it on decent figures.

Thanks again GW for ruining my day!

Update 8/4/12:

Plasticote to the rescue!

 After the helpful comments received I went back to the DIY store today (thankfully Mitre 10 was open on Easter Sunday!), and grabbed a tin of plastikote metal primer.

I've tried it out on a test figure, and it has gone on fine, dried matt black. The only difference I have noted is the Plastikote product takes a little longer to dry.

But it was only NZ$17. Thats a big saving over the GW product, so thanks again for all your replies, and thanks to their price hike, GW loses another portion of my hobby purchases.

RANT! GW LOTR

Rant!

After yet another humiliating destruction of my Mordor forces in GW’s War of the Ring, I have reached some harsh conclusions…

Here spews forth some vitriolic rambling frustrations in no particular order…

Lord of the Rings – Story & Movies I love them both. A few bits in the movies I didn’t like, but I can live with…

Lord of the Rings – the miniatures games – Arrgh!

Strategy Battle Game: A fun skirmish game with a few figures, but in scenario play it just seems to be line up the cannon fodder bad guys and let the heroes romp through most of them until they run out Might or Fate. And pray the scenario doesn’t call for hills or the figures just keep falling over.
Outside of this, to me Lord of the Rings should be about huge forces clashing, and the Skirmish game never looks right with too few models on the table.
If you DO put enough models on the table for a big battle it just gets so fiddly and time consuming moving all the single figures, it then takes an absolute age to play…

Which brings us to the War of the Ring game.

I had high hopes for this when it came out.

Huge forces clashing together, yippee!

A beautiful glossy eye-candy rich spectacle, and a rarity for GW – all the armies in one book with the rules. So no need to buy more expensive supplements, and have these suffer the dreaded ‘codex creep’.

The game also seemed simple, and quick to resolve and uncomplicated, with enough subtle twist thrown in to make heroes interesting and add an extra exciting dimension to games.

But after many games the reality has sunk in… If this was a computer game it would be called ‘buggy as hell’.

There have been quite a number of discussions on the online forum boards about the rules regarding terrain. What seemed an easy way to handle rules regarding terrain has turned into a mixed up farce with many house ruled interpretations having to be made. Not good.

After this, we have several charismatic units within the game, that due to its mechanics, are relegated to almost zero use. Here I talk about trolls, and other single company restricted formations that simply cannot keep up with the rest of the army as it moves.

And then we have the Epic Heroes and Spells. I hoped these would add some colour and flare to the game without being over powering or unbalancing, yet again there is endless discussion on the forum boards about game balance.

GW’s other games were often referred to as “HeroHammer”, and I fear that is how War of the Rings is taking shape.

If you freely allow army construction as the rules suggest you can cram in every knarly hero possible, with free use of similar heroes from other allied lists, to create an almighty Might and Spell slugfest, which utterly bogs down the game, or pretty much seems to dump it into the Paper Scissors Rock category of gaming.

Indeed, when I mentioned concerns at not being able to defeat an elven force, with a ‘themed’ Mordor force, I was advised to take several blocks of Morannon orcs with Gothmog, Khamul and any other wraiths I wanted to chip into the mix. ‘The elves would be dead by turn 4…’

The other uber Mordor list seems to be euphemistically known as the ’Mordor Royal Airforce’; named as you take as many mounted Wraiths on Fellbeasts as you can manage.

But this all smacks of Power-gaming and that’s the one thing I have always tried to steer clear from.

A game should be playable and enjoyable for both sides with balanced forces. Not creating uber lists to hopefully crush your opponent on turn 1.

That kind of gaming reminds me too much of earlier ‘Herohammer in space’ games back in the 80’s, where everything deployed in cover, and either the first person to move out got wiped out, or with sufficient special rules and gizmo’s moved and ‘vaped’ their opponent in turn 1. I don’t call that a game, it’s just an exercise in throwing dice. I haven’t played Herohammer or FordyKay since…

Yet singly, mounted wraiths die easily and again I wonder if they are worth taking?

So this led to several house ruled games trying to limit the excesses of Heroes, to One Epic per 1000 points, which seemed to help some of the issues raised, and yet it all then depends which Hero you take, and if they are the Paper Scissors Rock to your opponents force.

Being a Mordor player generally, I have a bunch of Wraiths to try, but singly they are not terribly effective, and against an angry rampaging Boromir, stand little chance. So am I forced to take Gothmog, or ally in Suladan into every game? Not much variation in your games then eh?

Gah! What to do. I feel like giving up on the whole thing, yet I have devoted several years of time collecting and painting these forces and making terrain for them, not to mention the cost spent, and the Lead-and-Plastic-mountain-beastie that still pokes its head out from games room and painting table cupboards…

Do I wait till they re-do the War of the Ring rulebook? Will I feel like shelling out over $100 for another rulebook??? Time will tell...

And yet another dimension to the overall mix, is GWs recent 2 pronged attack to try and kill off gaming: The so-called super duper Finecast resin/plastic range – at an extortionate price, coupled with their decision to try and restrict online sale by discounting independent retailers (God bless Maelstromgames and others) to overseas markets, where prices are so high compared to ‘home’ UK stores, it is just a joke! Even when you consider current currency exchange rates!

The Finecast I have yet to inspect myself, but many figures appear to have a ton of flash and mould lines to remove (at a potential medical dust hazard from inhalation apparently), and issues with bubble holes in the figures that need a fair bit of green-stuff repair. So I don’t get the “improvement”, and certainly not the new price, resin being cheaper than metal, or so I have read.

And generally I don’t see any great difference in quality of the casts between the Finecast and regular metal figures, from what I have seen from online image comparisons…

Perhaps this is simply my time to completely withdraw from the GW world of gaming? I only hung on to their Lord of the Rings game for a love of the ‘setting’, but the games are somewhat lacking as I have described above, so there you or I have it.

The one good thing to come out of the Lord of the Rings gaming stable, is the ‘Legends’ series of skirmish games, based closely on the Lord of the Rings Skirmish Game.

I have a growing fondness for their Legends of the High Seas - a Pirate skirmish game where the setting suits and looks right with a handful of figures, some fun themed games can be had over several scenarios and if things are not taken too seriously I hope a lot of fun can be had. Watch this space for more…