The Frontline Gamer essential Christmas present list

Even Santa Clause Reads Frontline Gamer!!!

Well 'tis the season to be Jolly, drunk and materialistic! So I thought I'd offer up some tip top present advice for you all. Things that I think people should go and put on their Christmas list to make sure Santa brings you some goodies. We're all tired of getting socks off of your aunt Maude or another sodding reindeer knitted sweater off of the old folks. Lets be honest here we've all had shit Christmas present haven't we? We've all had to try and look happy and pleased as some clueless relative buys you yet another fecking aftershave set, or some God awful item of clothing you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. You owe it to them really to let them know what they should really get you. Plus if you're going to have to sit their through the Queens speech and spend time with relatives you neither know or like that much, you might as well get some cool swag out of it, right?

Review: Descent Journeys in the Dark (1st edition)

It's a big box, no question, it's even full of stuff... just not win!

So here I am, finally reviewing Descent: Journeys in the Dark.The game loads of people have told me I should have got in the first place. It's reputation is pretty impressive, talk to any serious board gamer and they'll all know of Descent. It's also one of the few board games that many wargamers have heard of, most I've spoken to have either had a quiet respect for the game or have been madly in love with it and wanted to marry it. Honestly it has been rare I've come across people willing to question the status this game has, even in polite company, it's like walking up to the bride on her wedding day and pinching her ass. It's like handing the Pope a copy of Origin of the Species as a Christmas present. Telling a new mother her baby is ugly... all things that are considered bad form, or so I hear. So this review might be fun!

There's a lot of stuff. This isn't all of it!!!

Product Description

Descent is quite often described in language that is normally reserved for deities, rather than a game in a box. However, it is most assuredly the later and I have yet to see any evidence to support the claims that it is indeed the former. I'm not going to regale you with tales of what is contained within this box, suffice to say their is a lot. A hell of a lot, I know there are 20 plastic hero figures and therefore logically it follows that there must be 20 hero sheets. There are 60 plastic monsters too, and there must be a similar number of interlocking dungeon tile pieces. There is a rulebook and a Quest Guide, but there is no way on Gods good green earth I'm going to list all of the various tokens and thingymebobs and doohikies!!! There is just a boat load of card components in this box, a ridiculous number to be honest with you, and some custom dice.

Does Malifaux need to take a pause for the cause?

One of my favourites - Seamus

Malifaux is a good solid fun little game. I quite enjoy playing it with my friends when I can, and you can squeeze quite happily a few games into an evenings gaming session. It's a cheap game to get into in terms of what you need for a faction i.e. miniature count is low, way low. The miniatures themselves aren't too bad either with some interesting subjects, although a lot of them are posed in very 2D stances and are quite static, but I like the quirky nature of many of them. The world of Malifaux is certainly characterful, and no matter what you're into there is bound to be something that is to your taste. Some people hate that Malifaux doesn't really have a unified feel to it, in fluff terms. Then there are others, like me who just accept it and take it on board as just another layer of strangeness to the package.

However, lately I've started to wander whether Wyrd need to step back and take a pause for the cause. You see they've released a lot of 'core' rule books now, we're up to three complete and hefty tomes. If Rising Powers didn't add enough new things into the already tricky mix, they've recently added Twisting Fates, which changes things massively yet again. We also have the pocket rulebook, and although it's claimed it wasn't a re-write of the rules, I think there were significant tweaks from errata and FAQs to call it version 1.5. But that's OK, it was cheap, and to be honest made the game easier to sell to people. No the biggest issue is that they continue to add more and more options to each faction... it is hard to keep up with it all unless you're willing to devote significant hobby time to it and I think Malifaux might be at risk of losing its unique selling proposition (USP), market position and advantage.

S.O.P.H.I.E. - Please read

'When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.'  - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sophie Lancaster - RIP

Today I want to talk about an incident that really shocked, appalled and deeply upset me a few years ago now. It left an indelible mark on this blogger because I too had been subjected to similar sorts of attacks in my youth, just thankfully not as vicious or fatal, for being a 'goth', even though I was more Cyber-Punk. On Saturday the 11th of August 2007 two young people were savagely attacked by what a judge called a 'wild feral gang of youths' because they dared to look different. They dressed in a way that marked them out from the local crowd of Rossendale Lancashire, they were goths.

Sadly the vicious attack didn't just leave the young couple badly bruised and beaten. It left Robert Maltby in a serious condition and in a coma and his girlfriend Sophie Lancaster in as serious a condition. The mob had started their unprovoked attack on Robert, knocking him unconscious and leaving him unable to fend for himself, the cowards then continued their attack on the prostrate young man. Sophie at this point wasn't the target of the attackers, but she showed bravery and courage many of us wouldn't. She put herself in harm's way between the mob and the boyfriend she loved to protect him. It was to prove a fatal decision.

Adventures with Girls II: Down in the Dungeon

Totally suitable armour for a female rogue

Yeah so, my first series of articles on playing Dungeon Crawlers with girls actually 'went down' rather well amongst the readership of this blog it seems. Perhaps it was because the word 'girls' featured prominently in the title, a popular ploy I'm told by successful blogging types often employed to increase hits. Other ploys include the use of semi-nude photo's of celebrities or soft core pornography, not that I've deployed such base forms of popularist nonsense myself you understand. Innuendo laden articles? Maybe. It could just have been that people found them genuinely interesting to read, and occasionally amusing. Who knows, however, at the end of the first social experiment we discovered the girls felt the lack of narrative had hampered their enjoyment with the Dungeons & Dragons game Castle Ravenloft. That, and the lack of customisation of characters left them a little bit frustrated with their choices. They had declared that perhaps a more involved experience might actually be in order, and that we might seek a 'deeper' experience with which to test their mettle against. And us boys also felt that although the Dungeons & Dragon games weren't all that bad really, they weren't exactly the sort of game we'd personally relish playing all the time. We also wanted a more involved experience that tested our gaming skills a little bit more.

It's that time of the month again, Infinity releases...

Yep it's new Infinity model's time. Obviously we've all seen a fair few of these sweet pieces of miniature crack before. Notably the annoyingly impressive Drgaoes and the surprisingly cool looking Tracker Mul. The reason both have raised my ire somewhat is because I wasn't really tempted to ever do a Pan-O or Ariadna force... but recent miniature releases have started that old familiar craving in me again. Damn you Corvus Belli, damn you to hell!!! So without further ado here are this months releases and my take on them:

I like me a bit of Greek girly nancy boy action from time to time, who doesn't? Go on admit it, you're smitten with Aleph's pin-up too. I mean what's not to love about Achilles? Long flowing golden locks of hair, flawless masculine features, bulging... erm... weapons options! Oh yeah and I almost forgot to mention, absolutely fracking awesome statlines and an ability to tear almost any enemy a new one, in what ever way he chooses. He is a little pricey though points wise, and while I know sometimes the best costs, it's also nice to 'slum' it every now and then. However, we now have Aleph's mini-Achilles Patroclus, who looks almost as awesome as the big man himself and is also almost as effective... I can sense a budding bromance. Can't you? No not between me and Achilles, shesh he's outta my league anyway, no I mean between Achilles and Patroclus!

Review: 'Dwarf Kings Hold: Green Manace'

First things first I owe you lot a bit of an apology, this review should have gone live during early September and I'd just assumed it had. Turns out I'd scheduled it to go live during September of 22,011. Yeah, like I'll still be blogging then!!! Sorry.

It might be a smaller box but it still has stuff in it!

This is the second of the Dwarf Kings Hold games, and is therefore a sort of dungeon crawler... but not... ish... it's not like the co-operative ones you might be used to. I've heard people refer to Dwarf Kings Hold as fantasy Space Hulk and this winds me up no end, as the only similarities are the grided game board and that you play with toy soldiers! But, I guess as a quick, none qualified statement it's not totally lame... although I still don't like it as it's lazy. Jake Thornton didn't like me calling the game adversarial last time around, but I think it is adversarial, because it pits one player against another, and there can be only one winner, although obviously you both win if you're having fun!!! Although obviously the 'actual' winner is the real winner. However, the first game, which I thoroughly enjoyed playing was a fun game to play and easy to pick up, it also had a nice level of tactics hidden away. Dead Rising, had Dwarfs facing off against foul shambling skellies, and this latest version changes that dynamic by putting brutish Orcs and nimbly pimbly Elves together in a Dungeon of doom. To be honest with you I was intrigued to see how the dynamic between Elves and Orcs would be different to that between the Dwarfs and the living dead. Oh yeah did I mention the cave ins...

Product description

Right when I reviewed Dwarf Kings Hold: Dead Rising I had someone PM me a complaint that I hadn't made it clear enough that the miniatures required assembly, even though I said they did... so let me say from the start that the miniatures in Dwarf Kings Hold: Green Menace require the use of clippers to cut them from the spru's, craft knives to clean up mould lines etc. and indeed plastic glue to stick them together. I'm going to assume that beyond that basic information most of you are good to go all by yourselves! However, it is a fair point, most board games come with the miniatures pre-made for you so I guess for some people it is something that does need to be made clear, although I honestly don't think Mantic's miniatures should tax even the most basic modeller. It would though, have been good if they'd included a little assembly guide to help things on their way. You get a host of card tokens, 9 dice, 5 green and 4 blue. There are also 28 floor tiles of varying shapes, sizes and complexity, If you own Dead Rising you'll know what to expect. Last and by no means least there are those miniatures, you get 20 Elves and 8 Orcs, these are wargaming standard miniatures not board game rubbery things.