Do I get into Dust?

It most certainly can't have escaped most of my regular readers notice that I've been on somewhat of a board game binge of late. I'm sure I must have mentioned this a few times. Thing is I really am a wargamer and I told myself that after Gear of War, Super Dungeon Explore and Dungeons & Dragons: Legend of Drizzt that for me that would be it for quite a while, well unless Kingdom Death suddenly pops up at very short notice. You see although Descent Journeys in the Dark is beginning to be extremely tempting, as is Claustrophobia (if I could find a copy) I really don't want to divert my gaming away from what I love and that's painting cool miniatures and playing wargames. Although the Dust Miniatures are exceptional in some cases, its not really been enough for me to take the plunge. Plus on this blog I want to get back to writing about Infinity and few others a bit more.

Thing is the amazing alternative history world of Dust has always kinda had me interested. I've read some very mixed things about Dust Tactics though some people tell me its great, other people tell me its average at best, its this mixed messages I've been getting coupled with the expense of buying the game that put me off. However the world created by Paolo Parente and the miniatures themselves have always intrigued me. Because I think its fair to say they are a significant step up from the usual board game fair served up normally in that horrible rubbery plastic. No its more than fair to say that the Dust Tactics miniature range provided by Fantasy Flight Games is on a par with some of the best plastics on the market from more typical wargames companies.

The boxed game itself can be picked up for around £70 if you shop around a bit and to be fair that's a pretty reasonable price considering the components you get in the box and for what's in the box that's a very reasonable price. However there is another reason I was always drawn to Dust Tactics. There was a the rumoured wargame that was supposedly in joint production with Dust Tactics and would use the same lovely miniatures as Dust Tactics, in a proper tabletop wargame, it was believed to be called Dust Warfare. Initially I kept a close eye on the world of Dust waiting to see if this Dust Warfare would ever surface, and until very recently I'd have to say I was very disappointed with the fact it hadn't yet shown its face...

Winning streaks, Lady Luck and the Dice Faeries...

 Artists impression of a Dice Faery (Annie Rodrigue)

Well I think its fair to say that my unbelievable winning streak continues to astound and confound my opponents and to be brutally honest... me!!! Its nearly been two years now that I've gone in multiple game systems without losing a single game. What's more amazing is the shear amount of those games that have been wins. In all that time only a very few have been draws and even those were really moral victories in 40k and Fantasy. I can count them on one hand as well, its three draws. So how have I achieved such an awesome feat? Skill? Army list spam? Cheating? Luck? Well I think its fair to say I've had a fair degree of luck.

Well it actually started with a loss, a bizarre and totally humiliating loss to be precise with my bloody Dwarfs in Warhammer 7th Edition. What happened I hear you ask? Well I took a dwarf gunline, I mean why wouldn't you? Against a High Elf army, he had Tiranoc Chariots, Silver Helms and various units that were going to try and get over the other side of the board to blat me, my mission was to blat him with my guns and cannons and other toys before he got there. It actually went really well and he ended up with a unit of 12 Sword Masters or thereabouts and a unit of 2 Dragon Princes actually getting to me, meanwhile I'd lost nothing.

Yep the plan was going well. Very well. So how on earth did it all go so hideously wrong I hear you all cry. Well to tell you the truth to this day I don't really know. My opponent was going to extend his hand before the fateful last round, BUT the ribbing of his friends made him play on. We did the Sword Masters versus my Ironbreakers first, he scored a respectable 4 kills and I returned the favour with 0 kills, not to worry though I had more ranks and outnumbered, I still lost by 1 but the general and army standard were nearby. I rolled double 6 for my leadership. We laughed and I picked the dice up for my re-roll... 11. Brilliant my Dwarfs were running oh well, I rolled the dice... I rolled 3, with the -1 that was a mighty 2 inches. You could not make it up. His Sword Masters ran them down.

Mansions of Madness first play

Well after the nice little review by Martin over at Fire Broadside of Mansions of Madness I decided to take the plunge. I mean I love H.P. Lovecraft, I quite like Cluedo and I've found a renewed love for board games so why not? Well last night I continued the mission to try and convert Geology Girl and Dr Brainiac to the ways of gaming geekdom...

The view from the Games Master Chair, as I plot their downfall

Review: Dystopian Wars Ika Squid

Right before I go any further i need to make a disclaimer about this review. Firstly this miniature was given to me as a gift by Neil and Spartan Games after I recently went down to see the guys in Shepton Mallet to pick up a huge order for a gaming club I go to with a friend of mine. I think it was given because Neil is a really friendly guy and just loves chatting about the miniatures and games his company produces and when he found out I was a mainly Empire of the Blazing sun player he gave it to me as I was leaving. There was no intention that I was going to review it, and certainly no favours asked in return because Neil simply isn't like that.

I felt like I needed to get that out of the way because there are plenty of people on the internet who get promotional gifts, or just freebies of any kind and review them without ever mentioning they've got them for free. Then there are the other people who are honest about it and give you the reader all the information and let you make up your own minds. I think its fair to say that I fall into the later camp and although I think the following review is a fair analysis of what I think of the model, some of you may take the decision in the light of the fact that this miniature was given to me free that the review and me the reviewer have been influenced in some way. I just want to make it clear that if I EVER review anything that has been given to me I will ALWAYS make it clear from the outset.

Product Description

I've added the EotBS Battleship for a size comparison

Its a mechanical squid for use in the Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet (the greatest fleet ever I'll have you know!!!) and it comes in 6 parts. There is a submersed base and then a surfaced base, there are also 4 metal tentacles that attach to the surfaced base that flail off to the front on the miniature, two have big shooty cutter thingies on them and are longer than the other two arms that look like they are there to hold whatever poor ship ventures too close in place while those other two arms do their work.

Dwarf Kings Hold: Dead Rising, a few weeks on...

With any game really there is always the honeymoon period, and after you've got back from the Seychelles you realise your delicate little flower is the harridan from hell and not quite what you were hoping for... I'm not however speaking from experience!!! But we all understand the new rush of excitement a new game provides. We've yet to find its flaws and get upset about how broken it is or indeed get bored with it and start 'playing away'. So two months ago after having the original Dwarf Kings Hold for all of a week I actually gave it a bit of a glowing review. I'll admit it was my first board game in a long time and my rose tinted nostalgia spec's were definitely out in full force. Read the original review here.
 

So with the second Dwarf Kings Hold starter set (Green Menace) release date just round the corner I thought I'd revisit Dwarf Kings Hold: Dead Rising to see how it stacks up after a few weeks or so have past. You see DKH:DR was the first real boxed board game I got during my recent stint of buying boxed board games. The majority of my hobby time to is and always will be spent I think on wargaming, so as a product the adversarial nature of the play definitely appealed to me and still does. More so at first than the co-operative games I knew were out there, like the D&D Adventure System Games, Mansions of Madness, Descent and Claustrophobia to name but a few... but is that still the case now?

Well its not a simple case of either or really. You see DKH:DR got me back into to board games... and it is still fun for me right now. However it is an adversarial game and that makes it quite different to many of the games I played growing up as a kid. In fact now I think about it, it was only really Games Workshops own board games I played, which were set up as antagonistic or adversarial games. Many of the others I played were co-operative based. Playing DKH:DR is what got me wanting to play more things and I have to be honest and say it hasn't seen many outings since my initial blitz of it...

Review: Dungeons & Dragons Wrath of Ashardalon

 Its a game. Its in a box. Its a game in a box!!!

The second of the two D&D Adventure System games that I own is instantly cool because it has a red dragon on the cover (Ashardalon no less), and as we all know, or we should all know, Dragons are cool. Oh yes they are, and if somebody calls you a geek or sad for saying dragons are cool its because their soul died a long time ago and they now live in a dull grey world of normality surrounded by mediocrity, celebrity and reality TV shows that have sapped any individuality and will to live out of them. They are poor dried out husks of humanity devoid of any love or happiness, waiting only for deaths cold icy grasp to end the monotony and misery of their feckless and joyless existence... so yeah dragons are cool, or you're a grade A douche.

Go on tell me that's not cool!!!

Product Description

At the risk of repeating myself from the Castle Ravenloft review everything from the card board box to the floor tiles and tokens are all of a really high quality in terms of durability and material. We even get a nice deep blood red D20 to match out lovely red dragon. Again there is a rather large selection of beasties and baddies to select from and again most of them are actually quite nicely sculpted, but again come in that rubbery plastic stuff the Ravenloft miniatures did. There is a rulebook and a mission book, just as before and its all nicely presented and perfectly functional in an unremarkable way.

Complex Dungeon Crawlers: Do they exist?

I've had a few suggestions in other threads about where I should be looking for a good dungeon crawler, but I need to be sure this time that I'm definitely looking in all the right places. Right, so this is a plea mainly to the community at large who almost certainly know way more about board games etc. than I do as I'm still getting up to speed with it all again. After playing Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Arshadalon I've come to the conclusion that I'd like to perhaps give a more in-depth dungeon crawling game a blast. I'll list some of the things I'd like to see:

• Character generation
• More in-depth leveling mechanic than simply roll a 20 and voila I'm level 2 and that's it
• A more gradual challenge
• More narrative based gaming

Now I'm more than fully aware that what I'm talking about is indeed getting quite close to an all out RPG BUT, and this is the thing, surely such a game exists? Because I really can't believe for one second that I'm the only person in the world that would be interested in purchasing such a beast. So does it exist? If so what is it / are they and what do you guys recommend? Now I've been told and I've heard about 'Descent' but before I go down that road and have a look at it I was wandering if there were any others out there that might be worth the attention. Also I know of Claustrophobia, and yes I know I appear to have missed the boat on that one as it seems to be out of print. In fact would any of you game boffins know if it'll get another print run?