Salute 2012: Part 3

This was supposed to go live last Thursday, but life gets in the way sometimes! Any way getting back on track... as I was heading back towards where Dr Brainiac was still siting I took a minor detour or two. I also got stopped a fair bit by people who had recognised my mugshot on the Blog. I was stopped by way too many people to remember you all and as my blood sugar was low it's not likely I was in a welcoming mood. It was good to meet a lot of you and hear what you'd been up too. If any one felt I was a bit snarky with them you have my apologies. Any way onto my first port of call on the way back to Dr Brainiac...

Jacques-Alexandre Gillois

I was really hoping to get to see Jacques-Alexandre Gillois at the show, and ask him if he would consider doing an interview with me. I wasn't really expecting him to say yes to my request... but I'm a cheeky sod who thinks if you don't ask you don't get. However, knowing that he'd sculpted the Salute 2012 miniature I wasn't actually all that confident in my crowd pushing-aside-abilities to get to his stand. So it proved to be. He was swamped pretty much every time I returned to his stall. Jacques is a bit of a personal hero of mine, he's sculpted some of my favourite Hell Dorado, Studio McVey, BaneLegion mini's and many more besides. Kraan being a personal favourite. So I was saddened to realise that I wasn't going to get the chance to meet one of my heroes and ask him some questions *le sigh*. I suppose that started to taint my Salute 2012 experience too, I was now a bit annoyed at all the stupid people also trying to have fun... HOW DARE THEY!!! I just wasn't able to see and speak to all the people I wanted to and say thanks for all the glorious mini's and games you've provided me with over the years. Any way, do take a look at some of his own weird and 'inbreed' creations on his webstore, then you tell me that Uncle Meat isn't one of the sickest miniatures you've ever seen!!! This man is talented.

Sunday Sermon: Call of Duty!!!

 
  

Even success stories need fresh blood

No, don't worry I'm not going to talk to you today about Activision's over released, often abused, stale and dated FPS franchise... I could... but I won't. Nope I'm here to talk briefly about one of the many duties I think we have as wargamers, and one I'm not sure many of us ever get the pleasure to fulfill. I'm talking about the vitally important role of the playtester. Now I'm sure many of you out there will have heard of these mythical creatures that selflessly playtest less than perfect product, and give hopefully useful feedback on the development of a game to the designer. I've always offered my considered thoughts whenever I've been called upon. I feel it's the other vitally important duty we all have as hobbyists in the hobby. The primary one being the introduction and recruitment of fresh blood to the hobby.

So why am I prattling on about playtesting today? Well I obviously can't talk to any of you about specifics, or even in vague terms... mainly because of NDA's, but also because I've given people my word, and that means something to me. What I can say to you though is that recently I've had the pleasure of feeding my thoughts back to designers on a good number of products, many of them wildly different from each other. Indeed the design processes often employed by different designers and companies themselves are exceedingly different, and almost as interesting as the games themselves. As I psychologist and a systems analyst I find that last point particularly interesting... but that's not what I'm here to talk about, although it is something I might try to return to at a later date.

Salute 2012: Part 2

   
   

So the first part of the show had gone OK. We'd made it to London in one piece and managed to survive the keep fit lunatics on the Tube! I'd bagged myself some decent swag from Freebooter Miniatures and talked with some really cool people, and seen some even cooler product. However, I was getting a little bit physically tired and the lack of any meaningful breakfast was starting to take it's toll, not just on me but also Dr Brainiac... but we pushed on.

Sarissa Precision

Part 2 of my day I guess began at another company regular readers of my Blog should be more than aware of, Sarissa Precision. Yes the purveyors of exceedingly well priced laser cut wargames scenery were also in attendance... and their store was absolutely rammed! I'd like to claim it's all down to my reviews of their product, but I know it isn't. Nope, it's simply because they make absolutely cracking wargames scenery at very affordable prices and their range just keeps on growing. Even though they were snowed under I was able to have a brief chat with the chaps and see some of their new stuff, some of which will be reviewed next week... but I know they're holding even more back! They really seemed to be enjoying the day, this despite Steve needing the toilet quite badly apparently and being unable to extricate himself from the store. It was at this point I lost Dr Brainiac to the hunger. She was starting to flag and clearly was suffering for not having received her mandatory cup of morning tea. She set off to sit at the side of the show floor and have a drink and something to eat. This was bad for a number of reasons:

1. I felt like I was dragging her round a show she didn't want to be at and wasting one of her precious Saturday's.
2. But more importantly it meant I was taking the pictures from now on.

This second point is vitally important, because I didn't have a swanky camera. Mainly because I wouldn't know how to use it and quite frankly it would have been wasted on me. My pictures from this point onwards are quite frankly unusable for the most part. However, Dr Brainiac did re-join me at points. So many of my pictures in part two are either from other sources or aren't so great!

Salute 2012: Part 1

 
   

I hate you cat.

I ordered my Salute ticket a fair old time ago now, in fact I think that I pretty much ordered it the day they went up for preorder. Although a few companies asked me if I would be willing to run intro games this year I had to decline them all, simply because I wanted to actually see the show. So the 21st of April came around pretty sharpish and it was time to get my sorry ass out of bed and down to London. Speaking of time I had to get up at 5:00 in the morning to have a shower, so as not to stink and be foul and offensive to my fellow gamers, get dressed and try to look half way presentable... the image in the mirror at 5:30 did not look presentable! We left the house at some ungodly hour (6:45) after Poppy the cat decided she wanted to eat my breakfast Weetabix. Why the hell do I own 4 Maine Coon cats again? Any way we had to leave this early to catch a local train to Solihull Train Station to ensure we could make our connection onto the 7:24 Chiltern Line Train down to London Marylebone. So having had a wash, eaten half a Weetabix (screw you Poppy) and had half a glass of water I made my way down to London, and thanks to Mike McVey I was dragging Dr Brainiac along with me. When did I stop being a morning person? Or more pertinently was I ever a morning person?

We arrived at London Marylebone shortly after 9:11, so the train wasn't too badly delayed... well for the UK! We made our way via the Bakerloo Line to Oxford Circus tube station, whereby we then caught the Central Line to Bank. By this time I was starting to feel a little bit more awake, but Dr Brainiac hadn't received any caffeine... I was starting to get concerned that if she didn't get fuel soon she'd start tearing limbs off of people and going on a rampage. She's exceedingly British and requires tea to remain a functional, civil human being. I briefly considered at Bank whether it might actually have been wise to go grab a warm drink and breakfast... but Dr Brainiac said we might as well carry on to the ExCeL center as there was bound to be coffee and tea available there. So onto the DLR to Beckton we got and onto the ExCeL center we went. We were quite crowded on the DLR by lots of people who looked far too fit and were wearing far to much Lycra to be wargamers. It was at this point we realised why the Tube was so crowded... the bloody London Marathon. Just a quick word here, Lycra is not a fashion statement it's an affront to the eyes!!!

Sunday Sermon: Conventions and trade shows are they a good thing!

    
    

Well yesterday I attended the 40th annual Salute Convention at London's Excell center. Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of this new venue, it's a pain in the ass to get to and shows up just how stupid our countries fixation is with having everything held in London... I'm not wanting to focus on the negatives today, but I feel I must do so just a little bit. You see I like trade shows of all kinds, I always have. For a number of reasons I guess, but mainly because they give me a chance to sample lots of new and exciting things under one roof. Whether that be computer games, comics, or wargames as is the case with Salute. So I normally love these sorts of things. They give me a chance to meet new people and make new friends. But yesterday being tasked with the knowledge that I only had one day from 10:00 to 17:00 hours to do all this made me feel really, really rushed. I really don't want to have a dig at any of the guys from South London Warlords because yet again they've put on an enjoyable and well run show. But... it wasn't for me! I think in many respects I found the day slightly counter-productive, primarily because it was a day, a single, solitary day. So if these shows are done badly there is actually a danger that they can be harmful.

Off to Salute!!!

 
  

Right like many of you British / European based gamers I'm  off to London tomorrow to attend Salute. Salute is arguably the largest independent wargames show in Europe, and this year it celebrates its 40th anniversary. So it's been going on longer than I've actually been alive! No doubt it'll still be going on long after I'm dead. Or I hope it is. So what is Salute all about then? Well primarily toy soldiers and the mass pimping of toy soldiers. It's a trade show mainly, this year there are roughly 140 traders, there are of course a plethora of games been run throughout the show nearly a hundred, so there is gaming going on. But, for me and most people I know it is a chance to have a smooch around a product they've yet to see in the flesh and maybe purchase a thing or two... as I say it's one big toy soldier pimping session.

FAO Jordan

   
   

Earth calling Jordan. You won!!!

Hello Jordan, I hope you actually see this, because you now only have roughly 48 hours left to actually claim your free prize, the Krull you were awarded almost a week ago now. If you want to claim him you need to email me ASAP at the address below:

TheFrontlineGamerBlog@gmail.com

You also need to do so before 20/04/2012 (or 04/20/2012 if you're American) 12:00 GMT. Because if you don't I'm going to draw another name out of the hat this Friday and you'll miss out. Simple as that I'm afraid buddy. I'm not going to hang around waiting forever for you to actually claim your prize. I've sent you countless PM emails via Blogger friend connect, none of which you have responded too. I think I've done more than enough to inform you that you have won, including putting this article up on my Blog for you. Peace out!

Review: NuCoal Recon Squad (Heavy Gear Blitz)

     
     

Yet again the box is exceptionally shiny and very well presented.

So then after Saturdays review of my NuCoal GP Squad I thought it was best for me to get a crack on and review my second Heavy Gear Blitz boxed set and get it up as soon as I could... so here it is!

Product Description

I made the point in my review of the NuCoal GP Squad that the packaging was clearly designed with the retailer in mind. The small nature of the boxes is designed to help retailers make maximum use of their shelf space, and the production values on the packaging is really high, and it simply look like a nice quality product. None too subtle hint if you're a UK retailer, or hell a retailer anywhere in the world, this is a good product to have on your shelves! There are yet again 5 metal Gears in this boxed set as their is with most Heavy Gear Blitz squads. The NuCoal Recon squad comprises of 4 Jerboa's and 1 Cuirassier CV, all cast in white metal. This time I actually counted the components in the box rather than guessing like I did last time, and there are 72 individual metal pieces, that's roughly 14 pieces per miniature. That's a lot. Some of those will be options and variants... but not as many as you might think, because the Jerboa's themselves are made up of at least 12 parts each! Yes I know, that's a lot. The Cuirassier is made of 11 components too. It literally is only the odd extra arm choice and whether or not you put blades in the hands of your Jerboa's. So yep that's a lot of super gluing and pinning per miniature again!

Sunday Sermon: Does the industry do enough?

 
  

I'm helping fill in for Von...

I've recently had to step into the breach over at House of Paincakes with one of their organisers over there Lauby. We've both had to fill in for Von, one of their regular writers, who is currently mid house move, and thus doesn't have the time to churn out articles right now. To be brutally honest I'm not too sure either Lauby or myself were quite as well prepared for 'filling in' for Von as we could've been. But, what this has meant is that what we have done is create an interesting discussion around a topic that has got me thinking quite deeply, so as I say it has at least been interesting to me. Hopefully what it has sparked within me you will find interesting too. I've often spoken about our hobby's need for evangelists, and I still think that we as gamers have a duty to evangelise and recruit for the hobby. After all we too have a vested interest in keeping our hobby going and thriving, it's in our own interests to grow our local communities. However, my conversations with Lauby over at House of Paincakes have focused on the industry's role in all of this, in short are they taking the piss? Do they do enough themselves or are they far too reliant on us gamers to do the hard work for them? In the first conversation we touched on whether the hobby is producing the sort of gateway products that are required to help successfully rope new gamers into the hobby.

The impressive St Louis Gateway Arch

It's a difficult topic to define, and a difficult task for the companies themselves to broach. It's not easy for a company to produce a single successful game, let alone an extra separate product to suck people to that game as a gateway. But firstly let me define what I believe a gateway product is. In my second conversation with Lauby I think I did a good job of defining what I view as a gateway product. In that article I mentioned what I consider to be the holy trinity of wargaming, collecting miniatures (including painting), playing the games and reading the back story. These three things will have different levels of importance to us all individually, but all are intrinsic to what we call 'the hobby'. Without one of those facets I think it's clear to see that what is presented or served up to us is somewhat diminished. Pre-painted miniature games aren't 'the hobby', and painting without the games is something entirely different also, both 'hobbies' have their merits, but they're not 'the hobby'. Also a number of companies who have started selling a game without a strong backstory have rapidly learned of such elements relative importance to the sale of their product as a whole. As Mantic are just now discovering with Kings of War, and look to be addressing now by building a strong background with the announcement that the 3rd edition of Kings of War is getting a proper rulebook release... complete with full Mantica background!

Review: NuCoal GP Squad (Heavy Gear Blitz)

   
    

They come in a very, very shiny box!

Well I guess this review (like so many other around here at the moment) is actually really long overdue. I've had my Heavy Gear Blitz NuCoal mini's sitting in their respective boxes for some time now and I just felt that it was about time I actually told you all what I thought of them. I've held off reviewing them for a number of reasons:

1. I've been really busy, pretending I'm really busy (actually I have been really busy of late).
2. I've actually been waiting on some magnets to magnetize these bad boys.
3. I've also been waiting on some MDF hex bases from Sarissa Precision for another article I'm planning on bringing you all.

Honestly though? I got fed up of waiting for the magnets and the MDF laser cut bases have now arrived. So I don't have anymore excuses for holding off on the reviews now do I?

Product description

Right well the first thing to note is that these miniatures come in an exceedingly glossy shiny box that makes them quite hard to photograph, but very lovely to look at. If I was a shop owner I'd be very pleased at their presentation is to a very high standard and their petite size maximises that shelf space! As I say, it's a compact nicely presented product. The miniatures are multi-part white metal figures... when I say multi-part I mean it too. They come in a lot of different pieces do these miniatures, and are highly poseable. They also come with multiple weapon loadout options too. There's an awful lot of metal in this box, and if you're clever with magnets you can actually pose the miniatures so you can swap in and swap out the weapons options, which makes for a nice change and a great money saving option. I however got a little bit impatient waiting on magnets and decided to forgo that option. Each Chasseur miniature comprises of between 6 and 7 pieces, and that's without the main weapon options. All in all there are  roughly 50 metal components in this box, which gives you multiple weapons options, so it's actually quite a bit of stuff you get in the box. You also get 5 plastic 25mm Hex bases to stand them on... although I'll be going for something a little different myself.

Dream Pod 9 Spring sale!!!

    
    

Right I was going to leave the updates today well alone, as I've announced the winner of the Krull prize draw giveaway here. However, while browsing my normal lunchtime websites I noticed this exciting bit of information:

So who has won Krull, Servile Lord of Dis...

I WILL STOMP YOUR HEAD IN! TWICE!!! MWAHAHAHAAAA.

24 hours left to enter the Krull giveaway!!!

   
   

Soon he shall find a new home!!!

Yep this is the last time I'm going to pimp out the Krull giveaway contest, so if you don't take the opportunity to enter now then I guess you just don't want that badass demon beast thingy at the top of the page... and if that is the case you seriously need your sanity checking. No honestly, you might actually be mad. As always the rules are simple. Just be a public follower of this Blog. No need to comment or re-post this on your Blog, or any other crap I might want to make you do. Just follow this site publicly. Surely that's not too hard is it? If it is you can find out how to follow this Blog here. You can also check out the original interview with Rob Lane here, where he kindly agreed to donate Krull as a prize, terribly nice chap! Any way I'll be drawing someones name randomly out of the hat tomorrow (12:00 GMT 13/4/2012) and I'll post the results up shortly afterwards, so you have until then to get your name in the prize draw. I will then give the winner 1 whole week to contact me to make the necessary arrangements to get Krull to wherever he needs to go... because if you don't claim him he'll fly off somewhere else. Nobody stands Krull up on a date. Peace out!

Kickstarter, indiegogo and all the rest...

    
       

It's a pretty darn good idea... if you're American!

I guess I've been meaning to write something about this whole Kickstarter and Indiegogo phenomenon for sometime now. If you are unaware of what either of these two websites are I'll give you a brief overview. Currently we're in a bit of a pickle globally in terms of having investment capital for small to medium projects. Something about bankers wasting Trillions of dollars and plunging the entire western world into a recession and or depression. So what do creative sorts do when they can't get funding via the normal channels, like bank loans or investors? Well until now they had to beg, borrow or steal off of their friends and family... but Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer a very simple and clever solution to this problem. They actually offer a distributive funding model based around service provision for funding supplied. So if I say fund somebody starting a new game up, I might get a signed copy of the rulebook when it is in print or something.

Sunday Sermon: time to mix things up!

   
   

Mmmmmm... chocolate.

This week I wrote an article about my guide to writing a successful Blog. Well according to the comments and the hit's tracker that in and of itself has already become pretty successful, although I accept it's a little bit on the long side. However, in that Blog I talked about the fact that my own Blog wasn't perhaps quite as awesome as I'd like it to be, I always open to suggestions and criticism. The plan for me was pretty much always to take year 1 as a recon mission. Go out into the big wide world, get behind enemy lines and gather as much intelligence as I could. Project Frontline Gamer was a long-term endeavour and certainly wasn't just short-term. Hell, I even have a 5 year plan! Something the USA and UK should have had before invading Afghanistan and Iraq... but I digress.

I always planned for instance to have a very basic layout at first, and just concentrate on the content and not the look of the damn Blog. I wanted to purely focus on what I wrote, I wanted my early readers to come here not because it had awesome gadgets, but because what I wrote pulled them here. I think it worked rather well if I say so myself! I honestly thought that 'operation put myself out there' would take longer than it did, but Phase 2: Make it look prettier, started long before I thought it would. So last October I tarted the place up a bit with a banner an a few more useful gadgets like my Blog roll, and my system files (although those need a revamp now along with much of what I do on here). In short it's meant to have been a slow methodical process of building things up, learning and finding my way steadily... and it has gone a little bit faster than I would have liked it too if I'm honest.

Just a gentle reminder (FREE STUFF!!!)

See I told you he was bloody big!!!

Hello my friends. This is just another gentle reminder for you all, that if you are yet to do so, you still have 7 whole days to follow this site before I make my Krull, Servile Lord of Dis prize draw. Now I've had a number of emails asking me just how magnificently massive he is as a miniature... well look at the picture above. Standing next to him, on his base is a slightly taller than Games Workshop Knight from the BaneLords range. Said knight is the 36mm high Guillaume Le Pèlerin, Vagrant Knight. Yes... that's right... let it all sink in... just... a... bit... longer... and we're done! Seriously this miniature is utterly beastly in size, poor old Guillaume is standing to his full height, on top of some rocks on top of Krulls base and his head just about comes up to Krull's knee! Holy crap! If I was you Guillaume I'd stick to taking on dragons, you'll probably have a better chanece! Now I hope you can all fully appreciate the glorious majesty of  Krull, (who ate all the pies) Servile Lord of Dis. All hail Krull! And now I want a pie!!!

Google Website Translator Gadget

   
  

It's like having your very own Babel fish!!!

So then, I've been fiddling around with a few things in the background of my Blog. I'm hoping to do a damn site more of it over the next week or so. However, the first of these changes has been completed. Behold the the magnificent Google Website Translator Gadget!!! We're living in the future baby!!! The idea is a simple one, Google have developed an amazing piece of software that can translate script from one language to another, and it does it pretty bloody well from what I can gather. So I've been meaning to work out if there is a widget or gadget for Blogger for some time now, mainly because I get an awful lot of traffic from foreign lands that do not have English as their mother tongue.

Just a quick heads up (4)

   
  

Cats are graceful dignified crea... oh come on!!!

Yes it's time for me to do yet another quick heads up of various Blogging sites that have recently kept me entertained. First up I simple MUST mention Lauby's tanks, that's a link to his first fully completed Vindicator, and totally spiffing it is too. There's a whole series of cracking WIP articles building up to that glorious final effort, and they're well worth taking a look at to pick up a fair few hints and tips. He's also done a second and third Vindicator, and they also look just as magnificent as the first one he completed. So I guess what I'm saying Lauby is this, I salute you and your efforts sir. Top job! There's another chap who has been given a heads up by me in the past who has also been impressing this here Blogger wth more painted vehicles, this time it's Dwartist and his Vipers from Antenocitis Workshop, simply put another brilliant effort from this really talented painter. Seriously have a quick scoot around Dwartist's Blog and tell me you're not impressed. I bet you can't do it why keeping a straight face and looking me in the eye. Some tip top eye candy!

New Gears and Paint

  
  

So it's that time of the month when... no not that time of the month, no nor that time of the month... wait... just... let me finish!!! No, it's that time of the month when we get to see new Heavy Gear stuff. In case you've been living under a rock or just not reading my Blog (if not why not) you'll have noticed I have a bit of a crush on giant... erm... miniature robots. No that doesn't sound right to me either, but hey it's the phraseology the English language has lumbered me with! So what delights have Dream Pod 9 dropped on us this month? Well we've got some reboots of old sculpts if you will, namely the Tiger and Sidewinders. These basically optional upgrades to Gears like the Jaguars and Hunters if I'm reading it right. It seems the original geriatric sculpts have been given some hip replacement surgery and given ball and socket joints to allow for more dynamic poses, which is nice. No one wants to see Gears shuffling around the board using a Zimmer Frame do they? I will say though that actually they look quite nice, whether they're old sculpts or not! Here have a look yourself:

Frontline Gamers guide to writing a successful Blog

   
    

Right at the risk of coming across as a complete dick and self righteous ass hat, I'm actually going to write an article about my top tips for writing a successful Blog. Obviously this is not about writing just any old sort of Blog (although hey, many of the ideas are applicable no matter what your Blog is about), but a wargames Blog specifically. Doing this might make me sound really arrogant or even presumptuous, considering I'm not too sure I've actually written a 'successful' wargames Blog or not. Plus more importantly I'm really not all that sure just what the hell 'success' should look like... but I'll return to that later, don't you worry. The reason I'm doing this is because I've actually had an awful lot of people contact me and ask for my secret formula, or advice and tips with certain things. Although interestingly no one has asked me what shade of pink my Blog uses! Honestly my initial response was pure bemusement that somebody would ask for advice off of me, my second response was to say 'well there's no magical formula'.

Catz iz why yur Blog iz gud!!!

To an extent I do believe that for me there wasn't actually a magic formula as such, I just did the things that I did, the same sort of things that I always do naturally. So to me it was just normal behaviour, but if contact with other carbon based life forms has taught me anything over the years, it is this one solitary lesson... I really don't think my behaviour patterns could be described as being anywhere near normal, or average, or modal or median in any way shape or form. I do things in my own way and approach tasks with an interesting degree of fastidiousness, possibly bordering on the obsessive compulsive side of human behaviour. Let me explain, for me this isn't a surprise, as from a very early age I was very acutely aware there was something wrong with my brain, despite teachers just thinking I was away with the faeries and that there wasn't anything wrong with me at all. I knew there was something up. To not put too fine a point on it, I was smarter than all of my class mates through infant and junior schools by some margin, but my spelling remained atrocious, appalling, awful, abominable... you get the point.

Help Hendy Badger reach a ton!!!

 
 

Look at the kewt furry ninja thingy!!!

Right I promise this is the last giveaway post I'll be doing today. Honest!!! Right, Hendy Badger over at the rather spiffing Blog 'Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher' is also trying to drum up some support for his free prize give away. You can go read about what he's actually got up for grabs here. So if you've been eying Pulp City up it might be worth the effort actually following his Blog. Peace out!

Sippin' on Paint Water easter giveaway

 
 

Easter is a season for gorging yourself on chocolate because a bunny died for our sins or something!

Hello people, today is all about contests. Earlier on I explained to you all how to enter my prize draw giveaway of BaneLegions awesome Krull miniature. In fact that article pretty much explains how to become eligible for any of the prize draws I'll be having on my Blog. So I guess I'll be linking back to it religiously over the next few months, because I'm planning on giving more stuff away to people!

How to enter prize giveaways on this Blog

    

Come on... tell me that's not worth winning!!!

Right, I've had an awful lot of concerned folks emailing me desperately asking how they can 'follow' my Blog so they can be in with a chance of winning the sexy Krull miniature. Firstly don't panic there's plenty of time to go yet before I make the prize draw. Well, rather than respond to anymore emails individually I've decided to produce a handy little guide. Just so people are aware here's rundown of how you follow a Blog:

Sunday Sermon: Do we need referees?

    
   

Now that's what I call a flamboyant referee!

EDIT: Just to make it clear right from the offset this Blog is me asking the question, not prejudging and saying we do, after SinSynn raised a concern. Rather than let it lie, I'm mking things clear. Fact is I haven't been to a tournament in a while, so I'm going on a few complaints I've received recently. In my own experience I found tournaments to be fine and in the main cheat free when I did attend them. Just want to know what people think now.

This thought has resurfaced recently after conversing with some highly disgruntled gamers I know via various means. Many felt they had played somebody recently at a tournament who were to quote one of them 'seriously taking the piss'. Now this thought originally occurred to me about two years roughly, while having a discussion with a couple of people who had just attended a HoMachine tournament. Now both were seething, and I might add rightly so, at a number of things that they, and indeed I, would consider to be cheating, or at the very least unsportsmanlike behaviour. One of them basically said he could stand bad organisation of a tournament, even bad comp and missions. Hell he even accepted at some point he was going to come up against bad match ups he could do nothing about, but... he could not abide flagrant cheating. Lets be honest here, any half decent human being would feel the same way I'm sure, cheats suck ass! Whether it's loaded dice or elastic tape measures, it's all just a bit lame. Even more so when you consider we're pushing little toy soldiers around a board. Seriously? Cheating?

Do not argue with this man. He is right. That is all.

So what is the solution to this? Well I guess that depends on where you encounter the cheat now doesn't it? When I was at university I came across such a startlingly obvious form of cheating I called the guy on it in front of everyone. It was at our university club. What was he doing? Well two things really, the first and most obvious were his dice. He had two colours the red ones rolled high and the blue ones rolled low, suspiciously so. Any way me being good at stats worked out he was having unbelievable luck, although to be honest any idiot could've worked it out they were that badly disguised, so I asked if I could use his dice. He got really defensive about it and I remembered thinking "hmm I don't need to be a psychologist to see he's hiding something". The other thing was pre-measuring in a game that didn't allow pre-measuring. He had 4 pieces of metal rod on his side of the table he thought I couldn't see. He'd lean next to them and then lean on the board. Now if he'd asked me before the game if we could pre-measure, because he was crap at ranges I'd have probably said yes because it was just a fun game... supposedly!