Weekend O' Gaming

Salutations,

I got quite a bit of gaming in over the weekend. I kicked it off with a game of Flames of War with Paul at the house. I was suppose to go to the slow grow league, but forgot to pack my toys! Paul was nice enough to come over that night so we could knock out the game.

The game was a great game of my Recon Italians versus Paul's Motorized Brits. It was a blood bath on both sides with me having a clear line to the objective, but loosing one stand too many and loosing enough platoons to force a test. Since Capitino had passed away, that wasn't happening. Paul got the win with a 4-3.

Saturday I had a game of Warmachine with Adam. I started my Khador stuff and used a Sorcha rush with four Shock Troopers, a Kovnik marshaling a Berserker, Mechanics Marshaling a Juggernaut, Widowmakers, & Grey Lords. Adam was running Magnus with a Mangler, a Mule, 2 Renegades, Herne & Jonne. I moved everyone up pretty aggressively, and on turn two I popped Icy Gaze to freeze all the 'Jacks, allowing me to run my heavy hitters in position. Won't be able to do this trick in MkII, but it worked for now. The Kov & Berserker took the Mule while the Shock Troopers worked on the Mangler. Neither finished the job, but they did some serious damage. The Widowmakers exchanged rounds with Herne & Jonne and came up on top. I used the Juggernaut and Grey Lords to tie up a Renegade and keep Magnus worried. Game ended with Sorcha doing a few solid hits with Ice Fang. It was a good game from my point. Adam and I discussed tactics, like hiding the lights behind the heavies so they could both fire. Also discussed swapping the Mule for a Nomad so he could bring the Pirate McNale into the fight.

Saturday afternoon I was at Rob and Steve's and we rolled up Savage World characters. It is interesting system and I hope to run a modern setting game in Las Vegas. The characters are all 'real world' entities. Rob and Steve opted to make a larger version of themselves at 'GAMA Trade Show' while Eric made an employee of the Excalibur in full medieval attire. Paul rounded up those present with a cowboy reenactor from one of the sideshows on the edge of town. We tried the combat system versus a pack of dogs and it wasn't pretty. That lead to some minor character mods to help things along. Hope to have a real go in a few weeks.

Later Mic showed up and we played a bit of Rob's Forgotten Realms D&D game. I rolled up a new character, a 5th level Tempest Fighter that had lots of attacks, but low damage. One encounter was good, but I was dead tired and headed home about 11pm.

On Sunday, The Eldest and her Roommate came over for dinner. I roasted a chicken with potatoes, carrots, & green beans. It was pretty yummy if I say so myself. We played a three handed Ticket to Ride with The Eldest winning with a whopping 8 routes complete. We then introduced her Roommate to Pandemic. We lost to virus outbreak in the first game, but one the second.

Lots of games... :)

Finally, I worked on the WARMACHINE MkII Slow Grow League Rules. You can find them on The Game Shoppe Forum for review and comment. It should be fun.

jp
Play!

Savage Worlds

First things first.

First - I'm a gaming whore and I know it. Knowing is half the battle.
Second - I'm not dropping the 4e campaign. I like it and hope to run it for a very long time.

With those caveats out of the way, let me speak a moment about the Pinnacle Entertainment's Savage Worlds: Explorer's Edition. I picked up down at Meta-Games during WARMACHINE Weekend. It was dirt cheap, $9.99 for the book, normal retail. It is a 160 page booklet style format that is crammed with what appears to be a great little rules system. Art is good as well, I would love to have a poster size print of the Rocket Man picture on page 5!

Why this sudden interest in the game? I have heard of folks playing in the past and been given some abstract descriptions. I had also heard that it was uber easy to convert a setting to fit the rules structure, plus it utilized a minion type system to ease the combat with the grunts of the world. I had heard folks used it to create an Iron Kingdom's setting and since I am a card carrying member of the Privateer Press Fan Boy Association I thought it would be cool to utilize it for that reason.

Well... Since reading it, I'm not sure I want to just do that! The possibility of running some interesting settings is just too cool. Two that I am thinking of tinkering with in my 'oh so available' free time are...

• Modern (Near Modern) Horror/Conspiracy like X-Files and Fringe
• Fictional High Magic Pirate Setting

Either of these might be way too cool to develop into a playable format. When would I have a chance to develop and run? Who knows... Maybe after the guys get in the apartment, a week night might present itself for a bi-monthly shing-ding. Only time will tell.

With that bit of an introduction let me tell you a bit on how the system works.

Each character has a set of five attributes (Agility, Smarts, Spirit, Strength, & Vigor) and skills (many). Each level is represented by a die type. You buy more levels in each, increasing your die type with each purchase... D4 -> D6 -> D8 -> D10 -> D12. Each time you attempt to do something you roll the die type for that skill an/or ability. If you get '4' or over you succeeded. Players and big bad guys are 'wild cards' and always get to roll a D6 as well as the stat/skill die and take the best of the two. The target number can be modified by in game situations (cover/concealment/etc.). Players control their own minion/followers during combat, which frees up the GM to run the bad guys. Lackeys are either up, shaken, down. Easy peasy. Wild Cards have a toughness stat that keeps them up longer.

The book has rules for vehicles, chases, mass combat, and much more.

I just re-read that and I feel I did it no justice. The game just seems real easy to play, despite my horrible attempt to explain the character.

Any Hoo... I may start to work on the Modern Horror setting for S&G, just to come up with some ideas in case I can squeeze in the time with the guys! :)

jp
I'm John, and I'm a gaming addict.