Review: Super Dungeon Explore

So much promise, by and large left unfulfilled

Well this will be an interesting product to review. I think it's fair to say I was left a little bit 'deflated' after my unboxing of the game. Hey, I'm open to criticism and I went back through the article and tried to see if what I'd said was in any way a tad too harsh as some people had suggested to me. My considered answer after all this time? No, I was bang on with what I said. I still think it was a daft oversight not to include instructions on assembling their overly fiddly miniatures, and while I'm glad they've produced some, it's not in the box is it? Secondly it doesn't say anywhere on the outside of the product that it requires assembly. I'm not bothered that I need to assemble these miniatures, as I'm a wargamer and used to such things, but as a product on the shelf it should tell people what it is, and what to expect. The box it comes in is a shit quality corrugated card board affair, that does damage far too easily and thus makes storing the contents of the box difficult. And the playing cards? They're still the worst quality playing cards I've come across. So I'm sticking by what I said, so to those of you who have emailed me and told me to edit my unboxing article and be more upbeat... kindly go forth and multiply. They're my opinions and I'll not change them for all the barracking in the world! But what do I think of it as a game now I've played it?

Box contents pre-assembly

Product Description

Yep it is yet another board game in a box. Get over it already! You get 9 hero miniatures, 5 minion spawning points, 5 treasure chests, 2 boo-booty treasure chests, 22 Kobold minion miniatures, 6 Drake denizen miniatures, 2 Kobold Ogres and 1 Dragon miniature. They're the undeniable stars of the product. There are 5 double sided dungeon tiles that measure in at roughly 12" by 12". There is also a game tracking card which tracks various game effects and also measures 12" by 12" in size, meaning the maximum gaming space it takes up is 3' by 2'. There's a myriad of colourful game tokens and a nicely produced full colour rulebook. There are also 16 custom dice, 8 blue (weakest dice) 6 red dice (middling) and 2 green dice (most powerful). Finally there are about 60 playing cards representing Loot, treasure, Adventurers, Minions, status effect etc.

Review: Claustrophobia

Demons vs Christian zealots? Poppy will have some of that!!!

Well it's a game that many readers of my blog and personal friends have suggested I should get for review. It's been described as a 'dungeon skirmish game' also as a 'sort of dungeon crawler' and a 'wargame on a board' by various people I know and respect, who are normally far more eloquent. I can see elements of all three statements in the game if I'm honest, although for me it certainly has felt more like a skirmish board game. Claustrophobia is produced by Asmodee, the company originally behind the Hell Dorado wargame, and this game too is set in the very dark Hell Dorado universe. So I was very keen to get on and play the game.

Product Description

It is a board game in a box, what can I say? I'm addicted. Given the price of the game, and the fact that the miniatures are pre-painted I think there's a fair amount of stuff in the box. There are 36 floor tiles, single sided but seriously 36 is more than enough and they're a decent size too. There are about 50 or so card tokens, 17 pre-painted miniatures, 5 reference cards for the human faction (the Westerners), 5 plastic stands for those reference cards, and 13 dice split between 1D10 and 12D6. There are also 25 plastic damage tokens that you stick into the player reference cards to denote wounds. Finally we get a rulebook, a vitally important component to any game!

Sunday Sermon: WAAC vs FAAC

Who the feck brought the tank to the pillow fight?!?!?

Or just shut the f@$% up as I tend to utter when I see such titles! So after my first Sunday Sermon I had an email off of a concerned gamer saying that my first Sermon wasn't full of enough fire or brimstone. Apparently on the Sabbath we all have a deep rooted need to be terrified by tales of eternal damnation, fire, torment and hell, with no hope of restitution. Unless of course you repent your wicked ways! So am I going to do the fire and brimstone thing? Yes! Look I've well and truly had it with this bloody hobby's need to split everything into two camps. Pro or anti Games Workshop, Privateer Press vs Games Workshop, you know the binary arguments we tend to get when simpletons are given a computer and access to the Internet. Or my particular Bête Noire, the blisteringly annoying need of some people to split all wargamers into two distinct camps, WAAC or FAAC. There is not much in life that can be split into such stupidly simplistic binary arguments, even less so where human behaviour or attitude is concerned. It's not helpful or even insightful in any way shape or form, and it makes people sound dumb.

Seriously Bob why do you keep inviting that WAAC ass hat to your pillow fights?

For those of you who are gloriously oblivious to this lazy and totally false method of classification I shall explain the terminology for you, and sorry for introducing you to it. WAAC stands for Win At All Costs, meanwhile FAAC stands for Fluff At All Costs. Yeah it already sounds stupid right? I mean those two statements represent such extremes within the hobby that it's highly unlikely that any of us fit into such narrow categories. So people should stop trying to shoehorn us all into these two camps. Normally I'd let such silly and childish discussions pass me by and actually get on with enjoying the hobby I love so much. However, of late I've been accused of being both a WAAC gamer and a FAAC gamer, actually in the same discussion. The two idiots then proceeded to have an argument about which one I was. Apart from the fact that not both statements can be true, and that both sound like some made up shady intergovernmental agency. Also not to mention that they are totally lame descriptors of who I am as a gamer, it really annoys me that gamers feel the need to break everyone down into two bland groups.

Is the Imperium a Metaphor for Games Workshop? The riposte!

It's a well known symbol, and one that stands for stability above all else

Well a little over a month ago I poured out some thoughts that I had bottled up in my brain, and maybe a few emotions I'd stored up in my heart. I poured them into this article here, and I hoped it would spark a bit of debate amongst bloggers and hobbyists alike. Not nerd rage or the normal play ground arguments we're used to seeing on an awful lot of message boards out there, where insults and ignorance win the day. No, I had hoped I'd get responses from like minded gamers, who care about our hobby, and yes care about Games Workshop. I wanted people to stop and think about things properly, rather than just leap into the pro or anti camps as so often happens with any attempts to discuss Games Workshop. In my first article I really did wear my heart on my sleeve, I was honest about how I felt. I wanted others to respond in a similarly passionate way and convince me of some of the counter arguments.

It didn't happen quite like that, or at all. In some respects the article was a success. I know from the responses I've had to the article and also private emails I've received that the article itself did get many people thinking about Games Workshop properly, rather than just blindly falling into the pro or anti camps we so often get. It was a success on the old hits counter too, if you can measure success in such ways. What I didn't expect though, if I'm honest was that the over whelming amount of responses I got to the article were people agreeing with me in the main or totally. My attempt to create a bit of passionate discussion, or debate without resorting to name calling, mud slinging and nerd rage failed. To be honest it spectacularly failed and as such I view the article as a bit of a personal failiure. Hell in the end I'd have taken a bit of nerd rage if it had sparked a bit of debate. So I've been pondering that article for a little while now.

Yeah so they're cannon fodder, but they're devoted cannon fodder!

You see, I deliberately chose the Imperium as a metaphor because I thought it was such a vast concept with the 40k background that it could in fact be twisted quite easily to whatever purpose you wished, when describing Games Workshop. I still believe the broad brush strokes I made in that article, when viewed from certain angles or perspectives ring true today, but I was deliberately one-sided in my commentary because that's normally the way you spark debate, even if I do more readily associated with those views I passionately expressed. It's certainly true of academia and other fields I have worked in, but not it seems wargaming. Perhaps the article was too long, perhaps people thought it so badly written that it neither deserved or indeed needed a well written riposte! Or maybe the contrary is true, perhaps people thought what I had written was so comprehensive and potentially intimidating that no one dared take it on...

Why is HoMachine becoming so popular?

Not quite as well known as some logo's, but still...

Note: I know the convention is to call Warmachine and Hordes WarmaHordes but I’m trying to shift that to the far funnier HoMachine, so that’s what I’ll always refer to it as!!!

Right I think its pretty clear that both Warmachine and Hordes are experiencing quite a bit of a surge in popularity, especially when Privateer Press put out statements like this:

• Privateer Press we can't cope!!!

Any company that has to take a pause to catch their collective breath to try and catch up with demand, is clearly experiencing some serious demand for their product. And there have been other similar statements since. So why now and will the popularity continue?

Most of you will recognise this logo, and that's down to hard work and effective arketing

In my local gaming circle I think it is quite fair to say the Warmachine MKI wasn’t the most popular of games, not because it wasn't very good (it was good fun) but because we just didn't play it, and part of the reason was almost certainly down to the MKI monicker. Let me explain before you think I'm bonkers. Here in the UK it's pretty difficult to have a discussion about wargaming without bringing in Games Workshop into it, in fact perversely a fair few people refer to none Games Workshop games as ‘alternative wargaming’ it is almost like Games Workshop wargaming IS wargaming!!! I might have mentioned before how this riles me. For those of you not living in the UK that might seem odd, but for those of you living in pretty much any town in the UK you will have a Games Workshop store that pretty much has an iron grip monopoly on our hobby, although that is sliding and slipping a bit.

Sunday Sermon: Doing things the Privateer Press way, Wrath and Domination

       

            

No that isn't the Emperor talking to the Primarchs!

So you're probably all thinking why the hell has Frontline Gamer gone all religious on us right? What's with this 'sermon' stuff and preaching? Well you see I'm a researcher at heart, what people sometimes refer to as a stats geek. I've studiously watched over the last 6 months, yeah that's right this blog is now 6 months old, the viewing behaviour of people who read this blog. I thought I'd seen trends, only to find out that they weren't statistically significant, I'm still recording data as I believe the problem was one of insufficient data, the bane of every researcher! However, there is one undeniable trend... Sundays are my worst days for page views and comments. Seriously an average of 0.1 comment every Sunday, that's hurts me deeply! Plus my page hits plummet pretty sharply on the 7th day. Now I'm sure it's just Sunday. Perhaps you're all in church, or stuffing yourselves with roast dinner, or perhaps I don't post regularly on Sundays, or what I have posted is rubbish.

Great to drive on, but it gets lonely

So lets call this the start of a concerted effort on my part to produce some decent content for you all to read on a Sunday, obviously you'll be able to read these articles whenever. I just want to know for myself whether or not it is Sunday's that make you all lethargic and reticent to comment, or whether it has been my piss poor articles. So you're going to get a 'Sunday Sermon' for a few months, where I chat about something in the hobby that either bugs me, or really excites me, to see if it's the 'Sunday effect' or me being shyte. The first topic I've chosen is the Privateer Press way of doing things. What started me thinking about this particular topic? Well it was a comment left in my 'Does Malifaux need to take a pause for the cause?' article, the comment was written by Lauby, yes he of the House of Paincakes fame. He specifically drew a parallel between what we're seeing in Malifaux right now with the rulebook expansions, and MKI Warmachine and Hordes. I happen to agree with him, the similarities are unnervingly similar actually.

Review: Battlefoam Infinity Bag (Alpha)

Yes it has been 'Approved by Cats'

Well as you can see from the picture at the top of the page, this is yet another Battlefoam product that has received a coveted 'Approved by Cats' award. Ironic when I think back to the fact that I was originally reluctant to spend my money on Battlefoams, what I thought were expensive products. It was other peoples products that finally convinced me to give Battlefoam a go as theirs kept failing me. So two 'Approved by Cats' awards from my original reticence, it was a close run thing though on this bag, for a number of reasons that I'll let the cats explain for themselves later on. However, the crux of the matter is that this bag protects those delicate Infinity miniatures beautifully, and primarily that is all that matters surely? It's also a good size for the game and can carry all my gubbins as well.

Tybalt inspects the stitching

Product description

This is a bag filled with foam. If you've seen a Battlefoam bag before then you'll know to expect a nice quality canvass skin to the bag, with a hard plastic shell underneath that tough skin to provide a good level of protection. The bag comes with 3 foam trays in total. You get a 1.5" tray that will carry 41 or so standard Infinity troopers. The second tray is a 2" thick tray and will carry a further 14 standard sized troopers, 12 larger HI type troopers, 5 small remotes and 4 large remotes. The final tray is a 3"of pick and pluck foam, perfect for TAGs and other weirdly shaped mini's. Personally I'd have preferred a half and half 3" foam tray, with some different shaped cut outs and some pick and pluck, but it's a good configuration all round. Any who here's the ever chirpy Romeo waxing lyrical about his product, it gives you a good idea though of what the bag looks like: