Taking It Easy

I am and extremely casual gamer. I own a PS3 instead of an Xbox 360. I take Sea Guard in my Warhammer and Kings of War Elf armies. I prefer SmallWorld to Risk. I will roleplay at the drop of a hat.

Preferably one of these.

I like my games to tell stories and I will often make decisions in them that are sub-optimal simply because "that's what my character would do." It is large part of why I am mostly a solo gamer, social anxieties aside. As a solo gamer, you have nobody to compete with but yourself. You can't really cheat, because who's going to argue? So occasionally, yes, I will bend the rules if it will make for a slightly better narrative. I will rewind a turn to make a better tactical decision or I will re-roll a die if it ends up in catastrophic failure.

"I've never seen a level 1 town guard roll so many 20s!"

That's not to say I don't enjoy some incredibly difficult and frustrating games. Many solo games use increased difficulty as a way to make sure things aren't too easy, so I'm familiar with challenges. In fact one of my favorite solo games is The Lord Of The Rings LCG.

I've mentioned before that I generally play solo single deck in LotR and that I forgo shadow effects to make it a little easier. The game is designed to be hard on two decks played at once, so I don't mind using the official "Basic game" rules to give myself a break. Despite this, my win/loss ratio is fairly abysmal and each quest released seems to be harder and harder. Passage Through Mirkwood is obviously easy but I find myself playing it more than I probably should.The other quests are just too hard for me and my single-Leadership/Tactics-deck play style. I also don't really want to construct an entirely new deck every time I want to play a new quest. I'm lazy like that. So for a while I shelved LotR and found myself only occasionally pulling it out for a game.

Imagine my delight when Fantasy Flight Games announced a new Easy Mode for players who are having the same troubles as I am! The rules aren't too flashy, but they work. First, you get an extra resource when you start. This doesn't sound like much, but it means you can get some awesome extra/expensive allies out early game to ease the initial onslaught of baddies.

"It's bear time on turn 2, muthafuggas!"

Secondly, a number of cards are removed from each encounter deck before play. The cards removed don't alter the fundamental nature of the quests, but it does ensure some of the nastier cards pop up less frequently or not at all. The Easy Mode rules have a full list of what cards to take out of every quest through Steward's Fear, but FFG is going to be nice enough to print indicators right on the cards for future printings.

This is a great thing because it means FFG has actually been listening to its entire fan base rather than the very vocal hardcore-buy-every-card-nightmare mode players. They have realized that maybe people want a better than 10% success rate every time they play. It shows that they want people to experiment with thematic decks and worry more about having fun than exact card counts.

It is also genius because FFG has managed to do it without costing their players and arm and a leg. They have revitalized an entire section of the community and made entrance into the game easier for new players by simply publishing a free PDF. They saw the need and responded without even really being asked. I know it will work out fantastically for them because I've already pulled out my cards, started playing again and am planning future purchases when I had just about given up.

The Easy Mode rules have also gotten me thinking about how I play. Because of these rules, I have started experimenting playing 2-handed, played around with adding shadow effects back in (I still prefer without for a less random game) and trying out new deck lists. I have tons of options to play with. The recognition by FFG that it was a little too hard also makes me feel less like I'm keeping the training wheels on and more like I have a valid choice in how I play. I know there will still be hardcore players that will scoff, but at least I can make the choice myself without totally breaking the rules.

So, now my LotR games tell better stories for me and that's really what it's all about. I can relax a little each game and enjoy what's happening on the table. Cold mechanics and optimized deck building are not really for me. When I play, I want to be part of the action and watch my favorite characters create epic moments. I feel like that can happen in the LotR LCG now.

So thanks, FFG, for bringing the story back to the game.

Down, Down To Goblin Town...

I recently picked up Games Workshop's new The Hobbit: Escape From Goblin Town set and found myself wanting a 2'x2' board to play the scenarios on. I've actually been wanting to put together a new small skirmish board for a while. My green grass board is beginning to show its age with a few bald spots and some dents (kind of like me), and I figured this would be a great opportunity.

So, armed with four 1'x1' floor tiles and some spray paint, I managed to put this together:

I sprayed the tiles black, then found a suitable dark grey textured spray to go over that. It's a little dark, but I think it captures the deep underground feel.

I've come to like the textured sprays Rustoleum puts out. A single can can easily cover a large area and the texture is sandy without being chunky. Miniatures slide over the surface with ease. The walkways pictured are the Goblin Town terrain included in the Hobbit set (and can be bought separately for ridiculous prices). The rocks are some of Gale Force 9's terriffic pre-painted Battlefield in a Box pieces. Luckily with such a small board, you don't need much to cover it.

Of course any small skirmish game or RPG could be played on this board. I have in the past played compact games of Song of Blades and Heroes on a 2'x2' board using their 15mm scale measurements with 28mm figures (my 15mm collection is woefully small). Combats for D&D could also be played out using inches instead of squares.

Hayden the Slayer encounters some aberrant monstrosities in the Deep Dark.

It will also serve to host other Lord of The Rings SBG scenarios in Moria or maybe even the black ash wastes of Mordor.

Frodo and Sam fend off a Moria Goblin in the rocky tunnels of Moria.

All in all, the best part about this board is that it was pretty cheap. My tiles were free (extras from re-flooring a space at work), I already had a can of black spray and the texture spray was around 6 bucks. But if I had to buy it all from scratch it would be less than $20. It's a bonus that the tiles all stack and store in a 1'x1' space and can have other things stacked on top with little chance of damaging them.

Happy gaming!

"I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip."

For those who are in the know, tomorrow marks the 75th anniversary of the first printing of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit". Obviously this is a big deal for us Hobbit-folk (or those of us who would like to be) and a bunch of clever Hobbitses have started a movement to celebrate Hobbit Second Breakfast.

For those who don't know, second breakfast is the second of the six Hobbit meals (the others being breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, dinner and supper). Being a food lover myself, I am totally in on snarfing down a few pastries with some tea, but as I am a gamer, I figure I need to do something on such an auspicious day concerning the hobby.

My plan is to get up early and assemble a deck for FFG's Lord of the Rings LCG using cards from the recent The Hobbit: Over The Hill And Under The Hill expansion.

I love this particular expansion because, more than any other book detailing the adventures of Middle Earth, I love "The Hobbit" most of all. The dwarfs are my barometer for all things dwarfy; Gandalf is a crazy old wizard but obviously wise and powerful; and Gollum was creepy and tricky, but not an anti-hero. But moreover, the true hero of the tale isn't some human kid being thrust into danger due to some prophecy. I honestly hate stories like that because they are lazy. This isn't a coming of age tale. The hero is a middle-aged  Hobbit, set in his ways and living a life of comfort, practically forced into becoming a burglar-for-hire by a crazy old wizard, for reasons known only to a crazy old wizard.

This is the face of heroism.

But once the opportunity arises, Bilbo musters his courage and makes the decision to leave his comfy world and taste adventure. The moral of the story isn't that some of us are destined for greatness. What I took away from it, even as a child, was that it's never too late to be adventurous and even the most timid person has a hero inside them. We can all be the hero if we just choose to go on the adventure. And I think that is a much better lesson than most fantasy stories teach these days.

So I can't wait to build a deck filled with Thorin, Bilbo, Gandalf and the rest of the dwarves. I can't wait to sip a cup of tea while munching on a few biscuits and scones, all the while attempting daring quests in card format and wistfully remembering my first readings of "The Hobbit." I can't wait to do these things because for a short time, I get to have some small sense of what it is to be a Hobbit.

And that is a very brave thing to be, after all.

By the way if anyone happens to live nearby, my family's videostore, MGM Video, is celebrating Hobbit Second Breakfast with free coffee, tea and pastries. We will also be playing the animated version of "The Hobbit," as well as the Lord of the Rings movies throughout the day in honor of Mr. Tolkien's accomplishment. Come in and have a bite, if you like.

What are you doing to celebrate Hobbit Second Breakfast? Will you be baking? Gaming? Maybe painting a few Lord of the Rings miniatures? Or maybe just a movie marathon? Let me know in the comments!

Best. Gift. Ever.

My birthday was actually about a week ago, but I have been meaning to share this:

Do I have the best wife in the world or what? Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go kick Mordor's ass...

Lord of the (Wedding) Ring

Ok, so far I haven't been very good at updating this blog thing I started, but I have a very good excuse: I got myself married!

Of course I decided to do this while I have had a couple major hobby projects going on and thus I ended up with few things to post. Now that my schedule has cleared up a bit, I hope to be able to post at least once a week. I promise nothing, but I will be doing my best to power through some things.

Also, having just returned from a honeymoon in Ireland, I am somewhat inspired to do a Dark Age or Medieval Irish warband for Song of Blades and Heroes. Anyone have any suggestions?

P.S. I spent a night in Lough Eske Castle while I was there. And I got to play some Lord of the Rings LCG while I was there. So I gamed in a castle. Be jealous.

Favored Enemy: The Lord of the Rings LCG

Since I am between ideas on my dungeon project and not feeling much in the mood to do any painting, I have decided to do something a little different. This post is going to be the start of a new series I will be posting every once in a while called "Favored Enemy", which will focus on my favorite games that I am currently playing or that I want to talk about. I am NOT going to try and review the games I talk about in this series. I am just going to talk about the things I like, what I don't like and anything else that pops into my head.

The first game I want to talk about is one that carries one of my favorite themes: The Lord of the Rings Living Card Game.

The first thing that drew me to this game is, of course, the fact that it is Lord of the Rings. That's not something that necessarily makes a game an auto-buy, but it does grab my attention immediately. I have definitely purchased games that turned out to be less than satisfactory based on this (LotR HeroClix, for one), but it rarely steers me wrong and I usually end up with some great games (The LotR Strategy Battle Game is high on my list for best fantasy skirmish games).

But, the LotR name combined with the fact that it is a 1-2 player solo/co-op game made it an instant addition to my collection. I am mostly a solo gamer these days. This stems from a number of reasons, but is mostly because my regular gaming group has spread out all over the country these days, leading to only getting together for Skype RPG sessions. I also suffer from varying levels of social anxiety, so I rarely move out of my comfort zone to find new gaming partners. Solo/co-op games give me the outlet I need when playing games without having to go through the trouble of trying to find more players. I even play a lot of 2 player games solo by playing both sides. The 1-2 player nature of this game kind of lets me do both.

Lastly, it is also one of Fantasy Flight Games' living card game series. I love most of FFG's catalog and the concept of getting all the cards you need in any expansion you buy is wonderful. As a MTG player, I already get my fill of random card packs and card scrounging. While the core set of LotR lacks a few copies of some great cards, I can live without the max 3 that I can use of those cards and even if I couldn't, the cost for 3 core sets pales in comparison to some CCGs. So far, I'm good with one core set and couple expansions, but I do plan on buying more.

My solo setup. Kicking Passage Through Mirkwood's ass with my Leadership/Tactics deck.

Basically, you choose a scenario and its accompanying pre-set encounter deck to play against using a deck of player cards you assemble yourself. The core set comes with pre-set player decks you can use, but deck-building is extremely fun. By no means do you need to buy more cards, but you will find that some scenarios are harder than others, and not all decks are equal against all scenarios (even ones you build yourself). You get 3 heroes per player and you can play some favorites from the books, like Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli or Glorfindel. Other characters show up as allies, such as Faramir, Arwen or the powerful Gandalf (probably the best card in the game; never leave home without 3 in your deck!). You send some characters questing against the threats on the horizon, making progress in your quest if you succeed or raising your threat if you fail. Then, fight the foes that attack you from the deck. Reach 50 threat or lose all your heroes and you lose. Accomplish the scenario goals and you win. Simple enough.

Now, there are 2 ways to play solo: A single deck, or 2 decks and acting as 2 players. Running 2 decks works just fine with the rules as given. The challenges are pretty easy to tackle with 6 heroes and decks meant to support each other. I haven't played more than a couple games this way, but I am convinced that this is the way it was meant to be played. The scenarios just seem to be weighted toward having 6 heroes and there are some keyword (Sentinel, Ranged) that only function if you have another player. I assume actual 2 player functions the same way except that you have to deal with another person who may mess up your plan. 

A single deck is significantly harder to play and you really have to tailor your deck heavily to take on specific quests. Your deck really needs to be able to do everything. Even then, it is extremely difficult. I lost every single game I played until I decided to use the "Basic Game" rules in the back of the book and eliminating shadow cards from combat (or rather I deal one less than usual, which normally becomes 0 but some monsters add extra shadow cards). This makes combat a little more predictable and eliminates some truly nasty effects. Maybe once I feel comfortable again, I'll go back and start adding in the shadow cards to give myself a challenge. I haven't as of yet tried house ruling Ranged or Sentinel to work in single deck solo because I really haven't needed either yet, but it would be nice if they had some effect. There are still some scenarios where they can be useful, even if they don't work as written in the book.

I am by no means a master of the game yet. I have yet to attempt a quest with more than a medium (4-5) difficulty level, and I still lose 50-75% of the time (except the intro quest; that I pretty much destroy every time now). I recently picked up the Khazad-Dum set and a couple of expansion packs, so my deck has gotten a tad better and I am learning new tricks. Currently, my deck looks like this:

Heroes (Threat 30)

Powerful and versatile, Aragorn
is a consummate Hero

Aragorn (Leadership)

Gloin (Leadership)

Thalin (Tactics)

Leadership (27 cards)

Sneak Attack x2

Valiant Sacrifice x2

Durin's Song x3

Guard of the Citadel x3

Snowbourn Scout x3

Narvi's Belt x2

Steward of Gondor x2

Silverlode Archer x2

Son of Arnor x2

Sword That Was Broken x2

Longbeard Orc Slayer x2

Faramir x2

Tactics (20 cards)

Gandalf can fix any problem you might have.
Just don't expect him to hang around.

Dwarrodelf Axe x3

Feint x2

Horn of Gondor x1

Gondorian Spearman x3

Veteran Axehand x3

Veteran of Nanduhirion x3

Citadel Plate x2

Khazad! Khazad! x3

Neutral (3 cards)

Gandalf x3

That's all for the first installment of Favored Enemy. If you haven't tried it yet, I really recommend giving this game a shot. The learning curve may be high, but that's half the fun. As a card game it's expandable, relatively portable and comparatively cheap to get a good collection. If you feel like expanding past the core set, the Khazad-Dum expansion is a must have. There are lots of great cards in it and worth it for the box alone (but that's the subject of another feature).

More Dungeon: Accessorize!

To break up the project and have something to do while waiting for pieces to dry, I painted up some pieces to add some flair to the dungeon. Since I'm low on dungeon decor at the moment, I dug up some terrain from the Mines of Moria set Games Workshop put out and whipped them up real quick:

Here we have Balin's Tomb:

And a dwarven well. I added some moss, covered the bottom with some paper that was painted dark green, then filled it with some clear school glue. It was still not dry as of this picture, so we'll see how it comes out. I really need to splurge on some water effects resin.

A couple of columns, though these are too big to be practical in all but the biggest rooms:

A couple of trap doors. I love how well they blend into the floor and are amazingly exactly the right size.

A lock box/treasure chest. I went for a bronze look but I'm not really sure I nailed it.

And finally, some fun with the pieces:

Overall, I'm very happy with how it came out. I can't wait to get more dungeon decor from different companies to liven up the dungeon. First I have to get more rooms painted up though!

Happy gaming!

Battle Report: The Restless Dead

This battle report I have already posted on my Facebook hobby page a couple weeks ago, but I wanted to re-post it here so more could see it. This is a Song of Blades and Heroes skirmish using a portion of my Games Workshop Lord of the Rings miniatures collection. 

The bones of ancient cities lie scattered through the wild lands, seemingly peaceful... 

But the ghosts of long dead evils stalk the ruins...

And those who would fight against them are few, but brave.  

  

The stage is set...

The heroes rush to meet the ghostly threat among the ruins

One of the wights closes on an elf archer as elven arrows pass through it with no effect.

The elf mage uses an enchantment to bind one of the wights in place, allowing his kin to move up and banish it. The ranger cautiously moves up to support the victorious elf, heartened by success. The dwarf rushes to intercept the evil spirits bearing down on the elf archer, but he may be too late..

The wight lord charges the ranger, sending him fleeing and 

a lesser wight chases him down, leaving a hole in the line.

The wight lord slips past to threaten the elf mage, but his warrior brethren comes to his aid, 

intercepting him but having a portion of his life essence drained for his troubles. 

Meanwhile, the ranger drives back the wight chasing him.

The elf archer and dwarf fight valiantly, but the life draining wights take their toll.

The elf archer slumps to the ground as his life energy is drained away, 

leaving the dwarf alone against the undead.

After being driven back by the heavily wounded elf warrior, the wight lord is knocked off 

balance by a blast of magic from the elf mage. Seeing his opening, the elf mage

 rushes forward and sends the wight lord back to the nether-realm.

Finding himself wounded and outnumbered, the dwarf readies for death. However, as the wight lord disintegrates, the remaining wights lose their grip on the mortal world and vanish. 

The dwarf breathes a sigh of relief.

The undead destroyed, the ruins are at peace once more. 

The heroes mourn their fallen comrade, but celebrate evil's defeat once more.

This was a fun skirmish. It was interesting using a warband that all had the Drain special ability. It can be quite devastating when applied in numbers, since it makes it harder and harder for your opponent to activate. My only complaint would be the same I have with all Undead models I use: Morale. It always seems like no matter how good the quality on my undead is, I always roll at least a single 1 and it crumbles. I may try playing as requiring 2 failures in the future because morale just seems to have too much effect on the undead when I play them.