Adepticon - Sunday and Final Thoughts

First thing first:  Feels good to have your feelings validated, esp toward someone you don't "really" know.  When you come downstairs at 8:05am on the last day of a miniature gaming convention, heavily dominated by 40k players with their carts full of figures all trying to get to their event from their rooms, to complain/bitch at the hotel staff for the fact that you waited for a non-full elevator for 15+ mins and finally had to take the stairs:  yes, you are indeed a douche bag.  Any seasoned convention go-er, including this douche bag, should know this is going to be a problem.  In fact, I even woke up extra early (despite needing as much sleep as possible) to get downstairs for my coffee to avoid this.  And really, what do you think the hotel is going to do:  begin construction of a new wing of elevators because you complained?  It's not like the elevators were broken and contributing to the problem.  Always thought he was a douche bag, had heard he was a douche bag and now I know he's a f'ing douche bag.

Anyway, sorry for the rant.  Sunday started the usual way for me at the last day of conventions:  ready to go home and my flight not soon enough.  I did have another seminar that morning that I signed up for up, for some unknown reason (ie, not likely to have value to me).  So that was skipped.  I had signed up for another one in the early afternoon that I really wanted to do:  Airbrushing Vehicles taught by Marc Raley!  Unfortunately United Airlines moved my flight up such that I wouldn't be able to take it.  Bittersweet as I got home earlier but missed what was probably a great class (and on airbrushing no less).

So can you guess what I did?  Yep vendor hall for a few last min things:

The last purchases

Finished up the last of my hit list:  KoW rulebooks.  Earlier in the con I had forgotten to get the KoW template, so I "had" to grab that too.  And yes, that is another set of Mason dice for Guild Ball - I didn't really need another set but I also knew that it would really get under my skin that one in ten times I have to roll more than 10 dice that I didn't have enough Mason dice.  And god forbid I loose one!

The only thing, other than the Frostgrave spell decks which weren't there, that I didn't manage to pick up was the Guild Ball playmat.  They had a few set aside for every day of the con and Sunday's were gone by 10:10 (vendor hall opens at 10).  I am not sure I would have picked it up though due to the logistics of flying with it.  Also in the Legends of the Old West game there was also some excellent gallows from 4ground that the vendor carrying their product didn't have on hand.  =(  That was disappointing since I'm kind of picky about gallows, for some reason.

I ran through the Guild Ball tournament area because I realized I should check out if they were using terrain and if so how much.  They were but it was surprisingly minimal, about 5 pieces per table and the largest of which was about 3 inches in diameter (Broken Egg Games has a Guild Ball set of mouse pad type terrain that gives an idea of what I saw).  I should have gone and picked the brains of the developers to see if that corresponded to what they envisioned but I was lazy and figured I could probably find a similar answer on the forums.  And it's probably vague and non-committal answer anyways.

After some food, it was time for my ride back to the airport (no female driver with a Russian accent this time sadly) and waiting for my flight.  That pretty much ends my Adepticon trip and recap.

Oh, as I was leaving I did get a chance to introduce/meet/say hi to Soshie.  She often joins the google hangout I frequent.  It was nice to meet her face-to-face and see her awesome entry in the Crystal Brush.  Sadly she didn't make the cut though.

A few final thoughts and then I'm going to go back to being silent for awhile:
The Good:

• Guild Ball's apparent success in the vendor hall (like I said earlier, they seemed to dominate the vendor area).
• Autoduel was awesome!
• End of the Line and Seppy Yoon both were fantastic!
• Not having to call hotel security at 3am about the room next door (a previous con experience).
• Hope for Arena Rex.  If nothing else, the models need to survive.
• No new gaming obsession(s).
• Seminar with Angel Giraldez.  Maybe next year, if he returns, I will not be to intimidated to take on of his hands on classes.

The Regrets:

• Loosing my cool during the Legends of the Old West game.
• Not playing Space Hulk, but there was no way I could deal with that problem player.
• Not signing up for better/more/different seminars/games (this is sometimes not within your control though due to events selling out).
• Come on Osprey, you brought so much Frostgrave but no spell decks?
• I didn't play in Fist Full of Seamen (horrible name I know) or even stop by to take pictures.
• Bought shit I shouldn't have.
• Only knowing a few people there and that as only acquaintances (the regulars that couldn't make it were missed; the non-regulars that still couldn't make it were, as always, missed).
• Having no transportation and having to eat the bar food all weekend (granted the bar food is not that bad but after awhile you want something else, esp in a place like Chicago with so many great food options).
• Not catching up/meeting (face-to-face) David Powell or Kat Jackson, who I've been in a few google hangouts with.
• OMFG why didn't I play this:

Anyway, looking forward and hoping I can make it again next year.

Adepticon - Saturday

Ok, WTF happened to Saturday being a planned relaxed day?!  Management really f'd this up!  Up past midnight, 8am-noon event, noon-4pm event, 6-9pm event and 9pm-midnight event!  In any case some (ok, most) of these things were axed.

So I was up early trying to get caffeinated, fed and into a reasonable state of mind and body for my 8am game:  Mech Attack.  Basically a 28mm Mech/combined arms game ("imagine Battletech with 1/10 the rules" was how it was described) played on a beautiful board:

Confirmed they got in on the same FFG Dust Warfare sale I did!  LOL

This is giving me some great ideas what to do with my buildings!

Another view and more ideas.

The "Good" Guys

The "Bad" Guys

Unfortunately not a lot of people signed up and one of the GMs was forced to fill in to give us a 2 on 2 game.  We only used 1 mech, 2 vehicles and 2 squads - so I suspect by the selection above they were hoping for a much larger game.  Overall a pretty decent game with some great terrain.  I failed to play to the objectives and ultimately the bad guys (my team) lost.  The other player on my team managed to score the most points though and took home a Bolt Action rulebook for her valiant effort.  Not much else to say, except I got to play a game with 28mm Mecha (about 10 inches tall)!

After that it was time to call an audible, there was no way I was doing all the stuff I was signed up for on Saturday.

• Noon-4pm:  Car Wars - Already did it, fun and all but I scratched it (plus I needed food).
• 6-9pm:  Space Hulk - Well, I already knew that "problem" player from the Legends of the Old West game was playing in this, so hell no!
• 9-midnight:  Autoduel - Since I had already done one game of this, it was going to be a game time decision which ultimately I decided to skip also.

So, with my day "salvaged" back to a more relax day I grabbed some food, took a nap and, of course, hit up the vendor floor again.  I did a quick demo of the new version of CAV from Reaper and said hi to Seppy Yoon, creator of End of the Line (previously mentioned Kickstarter a few posts back).  Seppy was extremely enthusiastic, energetic and all around awesome.  He let me know he would be showing people how to play End of the Line after the vendor hall closed at the board game area and that I should stop by.

Money still burning a hole in my pocket

I did pick up the CAV rulebook but in retrospect I think I could get what I want for a Mecha game using the Mech Attack rules (available on Wargames Vault at a much lower price point and originally intended for 15mm not 28mm).

And then there was trouble.  Mike over at Mini Mayhem texted (he wasn't able to attend this year) asking me to pick up the new Hyena Handler for Arena Rex (below).  He also "suggested" that I pick up a starter set for it.  Bad Mike!  After giving him some grief about trying to drag me into something else, I admitted that I backed their Kickstarter and already had about 5-6 Ludus Magnus figures and that I just added another (the figure to the right in the picture above).

The Arena Rex booth also seemed very popular all weekend and the creator I spoke with was very gracious.  Additionally, they had sold out of many of the figures by that time.  It seems like things have been pretty slow with this game and company since the Kickstarter and it will be interesting to see if this outing nets some renewed interest.

Ninja Buy

Wondering around for a bit, I ended up at a demo for Warlord Games Project Z.  A good demo and what seems to be a decent, albeit tongue n cheek, system:

I played the celebs at the bottom of this picture:  Shaft, Elvis, Female Ash, etc.

Hard to tell from the crappy picture, but the Dude Abides!  Those
models were carried by Impact Miniatures btw if someone is interested

It has some interesting mechanics that the demo guy explained to me but were not in the demo.  Such as a hand of cards that you can play to modify attack (or defense) results, thus reminding me a bit of Malifaux.  It also has a very interesting campaign system that is composed of 1v1, multiplayer and solo scenarios.  It should be noted, although not confirmed, that the I think the nature of the demo board (scattered with "toys" and railroad buildings, etc) and the miniature paint jobs (some not all that great) was to drive home that this is intended as a "grab" what you have or want kind of game.

Flashing back to my first Adepticon 4(?) years ago:  I got a chance to demo Zombicide and happened to do so with Craig and Russ from the D6 Generation podcast.  So what happened this year, I demoed Project Z with Craig from the D6 Generation and Dave & Andy from the Nerdherders.  LOL.  Not surprisingly, if you listen to their podcasts, there was some kind of grudge to be worked out between Craig and Andy (I think) that waited to manifest until a couple of turns into the demo, at which point they started to attack each other.  Honestly, from my perspective Andy's gang was just walking up to say hi and share some rations when Craig open fired...  Afterwards I briefly complemented both of their podcast and they gave me some freebies/fan favors:

I believe those 4 heads are head sculpts of the Nerherder hosts

Parting company with them, I headed down to the board game area to see if Seppy was around to show me End of the Line.  He wrangled up enough players (3 of us new to it, plus 2 that played the previous day) and we had a blast.  Easily the most fun I had all weekend.  And it relieved any Kickstarter regrets that I had, well except that I have to wait for it to be fulfilled.  Great game, great guy.  Best of luck to Seppy!

That wrapped up Saturday at Adepticon for me.  Just a couple of things left to check off on Sunday and then fly home.  Oh btw, bitz trading on Saturday seemed just as weak as Friday...

Adepticon - Friday

My day 2 of Adepticon started off kind of slow but at least I got to sleep in.  After waking up and coffee, I head to my first of two seminars of the day:  The Badger Airbrushing classes (101 & 102).  While not of significant value to me, I did pick up a few bits of knowledge.  The classes are excellently taught and are entertaining enough to hold interest even if you have a bit of airbrush knowledge under your belt.  I think it is very important to say that these classes are not a Badger sales pitch, Ken is very open and respectful of other quality airbrush producers.  It is equally important to point out, for those that could be interested, that this is not an airbrush technique class.  But if you are thinking about picking up an airbrush, intimidated about airbrushes and/or new to airbrushing there is definitely value and help that can be obtained from this class.

In between those classes was another visit to the vendor hall:

Yes, that is the corner of my bed.

The skirmish outbreak was a bit of a weak moment and I'm not entirely sure about the system as it appears to be a you go, I go activation system (not my favorite) but I suffered some kind of moment of weakness.  I also decided to go back to the Guild Ball booth and pick up their counters:  I'm normally not inclined to spend money on tokens but I guess my money was burning a whole in my pocket.  As you can see I also grabbed some movement tray/bases from Broken Egg Games for Kings of War and tokens for that game.  Wow, I was just weak on Friday.

Another run in with Derek resulted in getting to meet and chat with the creators of Guild Ball.  Then it was off to my first game of the day at 4pm, lol.  It was a Car Wars game run by Lathan from Burn in Designs.  While I had experienced Battletech in my early wargaming history when I was a teenager, I never did play Car Wars (those two games and that particular timing seem to typically go hand in hand).  So with a vehicular combat itch to satisfy, this was an excellent chance to give it a whirl.

Ten players showed up for the game that Lathan was afraid that no one would show up for!  We mutually agreed to pull into one giant game of two teams (5 on 5), last team standing.  Ultimately my team was demolished and I don't think we even managed to kill of a single car of the other team.  I was the last of my team to go down but more to bad tactical decisions rather than good ones.  Lathan also handed out very nice player favors but I think I forgot mine at the table and thus have no photo.  Many beautiful modified cars were available to choose from:

The selection and some nice terrain he designed for the event

My car for the scenario

It was a fun game, well run and great participants but as I suspected, the mechanics and fluidity of Car Wars leaves a bit to be desired.  I can't say what exactly the issue(s) is though and it does manage to capture aspects that some of the competing possibilities are not able to (I think).  Maybe it was just the scale of that many players.  Anyway, as this is a "windmill" topic of mine, further exploration/analysis is planned.  Eventually...

A quick bite to eat and then it was time to head to my second game, Autoduel: First to Valhalla run by Sam.  Another selection of beautiful cars, this time painted by Dave Taylor over at Dave Taylor Miniatures:

Be sure to check Dave's blog for great pics of all the trucks!

From the event description:  "Each player will represent a Praetor driving a kitted out and armored monster truck. Players will race around collecting flags, while attempting send their rivals 'First to Valhalla'."  A very unique custom/home brew game that played very well and was a lot of fun, featuring a flexible "programming" movement/action system that you have to manage as a resource and a unique vehicle damage system that results in fewer movement/action choices and often hilarity!

My truck in the middle

After the first of five players was eliminated, a priceless target of opportunity presented itself.  Born of greed to send that first player to Valhalla, this was the situation when it was my turn to activate (note my vehicle is not in that scrum!):

Why bother with target priority if you can get them all at once!

After my first action, only one of them remained and my second action granted me epic glory:

Witness me!

A great game that I hope Sam continues to polish and bring back to Adepticon and a really fun time with my fellow players.  Oh yeah, the winner's prize:

That wraps my second day at Adepticon and a very late night (at least for me).  At least Saturday is my usual planned relaxed (or more so) day at conventions.

As a note, these last two events took place around the same time as bitz trading and was in the hall right beside that area.  I don't know if it was the new policy, location or what but bitz trading seemed significantly down this year.  Idk.

Adepticon - Thursday

A few up front caveats regarding these Adepticon recaps.  Firstly, they were drafted during/after as I was there and finally re-edited now that I am back home and have the convenience of a computer to pull them together with pictures.  That being said, for the English majors out there, I will probably have severe issues in these post with mixed tenses.  Also, I tended to only take pictures of events/things I was involved in - there are plenty of great pictures of many of the events and the Crystal Brush entries.  While I do have a very nice standalone camera to potentially do this, I'm not hauling it around - so you get camera phone pictures, I'm sorry!

The day started off very early with my alarm going of at 3:30am so that I could catch a flight from Huntsville, to the totally not on the way destination of Houston!  I arrived in Houston as my plane to Chicago was boarding, so I had a nice little jog from the commuter terminal to the "real" terminals and was about the last person to board the plane.  What a great way to start but at least I made the flight.  Things improved a bit once in Chicago as I was picked up by a driver from Windy City Limo's to take me to the hotel.  A very nice woman with an awesome Russian/eastern block accent.

A little bit of a shout out to Windy City Limo:  I totally f'd up my reservation and it was pretty much transparent to me that I had (ie, they handled it on the fly and barely even brought it up).  Also, if you are by yourself, at least, it looks like the rates are almost comparable to getting a taxi but a much better experience IMO.  Part of the trick is to be willing to sign up for shuttle service as they will often still send a car for you.

Anyway, check in, smooth as usual once at the convention (hotel and con).  Immediately I dumped my bags, check the preregistration swag bag and caught my breath for a few mins:

Not bad for non-VIG swag

Afterwards, I headed for the vendors to scope any potential limited supply items.   Steamforged Games had several new season 2 figs for Guild Ball.  Props to those guys and gals for busting up a starter to give me a game ball that I didn't get in my starter set.  As an aside, they (Steamforge/Guild Ball) seemed to dominate the vendor hall the entire convention.  I think we are going to be seeing a lot of new Guild Ball players!

Hammer Time!

A quick swing by the Osprey booth was disappointing as they had lots of Frostgrave books and minis, but they had none of the highly sought after spell decks.

Next on the agenda was my first seminar of the convention, Vallejo Painting Demos taught by Angel Giraldez (the studio painter for Infinity if you didn't know).  Not much can really describe seeing Angel (sorry for lack of proper accents, btw) work.  Simply amazing and effortless.  I picked up a few new things to try out.  Angel is also very friendly, gracious and approachable even remembering me from the class later on and saying hi.  I hope he returns in the future, as this was the only one of his classes I took. Volume 2 of his painting book will be coming later this year too!

Running back through the vendor hall afterwards I ran into Derek from Throne of Angels and chatted for a bit.  I had never met Derek face to face, so it was great to meet and chat with him, beyond the usual google hangout I participate in.

After a short rest and food, I headed for my first game of the con:  Legends of the Old West - Showdown at Tandywine Gulch.  I suspected and was correct, that this was a game run by a guy/group out of Kansas that I have had tons of fun with in previous years.  The setup was 8 players each controlling a separate faction having arrived in Tandywine just prior to the Hanging Judge's arrival.  Each faction had a hidden objective to accomplish.  The GM controlled events and NPCs in the town that would sometimes (even violently, helpfully or not-helpfully interact with "characters).  I ended up with the Outlaws, just by change of grabbing the seat that I did:

The Outlaws (and my camera phone acting up - sorry)

As typical with this GM, a beautiful table totally ruined by my phone not liking this room one bit:

Tandywine Gulch

My objective was to free "Taco" from the jail before the Hanging Judge arrived.  And this is where things started to go down hill, in game and out.  We (seriously, pretty much all of us) had a bit of an issue with one of the players, which pretty much put me at my wits end.  This factored into me loosing my shit a little bit with another player.  Kind of embarrassing, I should have been in better control of my own enjoyment.  I think the extreme early start of the day, all the running around and this being a late game contributed a little bit to a low tolerance level.  Still out of respect for the GM, I stuck it out and managed to free "Taco" and not harm (in real life) any players.  Two other players also managed to achieve their objectives.  A nice player favor from the GM:

GM's giving out favors now?  Wow.

A few funny things that happened in the game:  The O'Malley brothers knocked one of my gang out.  They had been drinking and fighting with each other all day and I stumbled a bit to close to their brawl.  The owner opium den and the snake oil salesman tied up some other people for several turns, as well as the Mayor who gave a talking to the Indians.  Oh, at the undertaker - business had been very slow and he took it upon himself to try to change that.

Well that is the day one recap. Tomorrow, maybe, I will recap my second day at Adepticon.

--Edit/Clarification--
Just to be clear and honest, I was out of line in "loosing my shit" during the Showdown at Tandywine Gulch.  Ok.  And the GM did a really outstanding job of trying to handle the problem player short of just kicking him out of the game.

February & March Recap

Not much to report or recap from February and March.  Pretty much all my spare time as been spent dealing with the house and moving in (and out of the apartment):  packing, unpacking essentials, cleaning and getting all our other non-temporary housing stuff moved from storage in VA to here.  Starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel though.  Well, except for my new man-cave:

Don't forget all the boxes over here >>>>>>>>>>>>

It pretty much takes a back seat to everything else in the grand scheme of things, esp when you gotta get beds set up to sleep in AND find the sheets for those beds!

In any case, I did manage to get a few board games in with co-workers at the mostly-regular Wed lunch group.  I think maybe 3 sessions of playing 7 Wonders.  Pretty good game and I think very accessible to new people once you get them to understand that it really doesn't "hurt" you to ask questions (ie, asking what a card does really doesn't give away your strategy or anything).

Ok, ok, ok.  There has been some sins committed, so confession time I guess...

I fell a bit off the wagon in regards to kickstarter (I've personally been very anti-kickstarter lately and even have a partially written post on the subject, but I keep re-writing it).  Anyway, 2 particular kickstarters really grabbed my attention and caused me to waiver.  The first, End of the Line - Post-Apocalyptic Family Survival hit too many sweet spots for me to pass:  screw your neighbor (actually, screw yourself to screw your neighbor), post-apocalypse and a really great sounding creator.  It really was the creator's, Seppy Yoon, interviews on the D6G and Nerdherders that sold me on backing this game.  The interviews can be found here and here respectively.

End of the Line - Post-Apocalyptic Family Survival

The second was called RelicBlade and I only backed for the rules and cards (not the miniatures, I figure I have enough stuff to field a decent enough proxy army).  I really loved the art style and the gameplay, seen here on Guerrilla Miniature Games, really sold me as something I could maybe one day introduce to my daughter (if she shows an interest or curiosity).

RelicBlade

Also part of the reason I was willing to back these support these projects is that they really felt like projects that would not have come about without a platform like kickstarter.

And lastly, I cashed in a big amount of credit with CoolStuffInc.  It is an old credit from when I traded in my Vs CCG collection.  This was back when CSI used to sell (some) miniatures.  As you may or may not know, they no longer sell "miniatures."  So a few compounded factors lead me to go ahead and spend it all:  my credit was nearly two years old, they do have FFG "miniatures" (aka X-wing, Armada, Imperial Assault, etc) and that the new Asmodee distrubtion rules are about to take affect (which may have an affect on FFG online pricing).  So now I have Mice & Mystics (see previous comment about something to introduce to my daughter), a bunch of new Star Wars Armada (ok, everything thru Wave 2, with some repeats and absolutely no idea what I will ever do with it - but it's Star Wars!) and a bunch of new Star Wars Imperial Assault (again, no idea what I will ever do with it - but it's Star Wars!).

Anyway, I'm off to Adepticon next week for some much needed fun!  This year, I'm back to my rotation where I am taking nothing!  Everything I am participating in is either a one-off, with materials supplied, or a hobby seminar.  I don't really know why I ever deviate from this approach at conventions as it provides me the most enjoyment (tried and true).  It should be a great way to get back in the hobby-ing spirit after the two month moving lull.    

Frostgrave - Alternative Probability Approaches and Results (Or, "Don't Let Me Design Games!")

As I previously mentioned in my Frostgrave first impressions post, Mike and I decided to try the system out with a 2d10 approach versus the official d20 system.  For me, this idea was introduced by the Meeples and Miniatures podcast (I think) having mentioned using 3d6 instead of a d20.  I assume their reasoning, like ours, was the appeal of a Gaussian distribution that multiple dice give versus a straight uniform distribution.  See below for what I mean (being lazy, I didn't feel like doing probability math so I just simulated results instead):

From left to right, the probability of dice roll:  1d20, 2d10, 3d6

As you can see from the 1d20 graph, it results in an equal probability of any potential result, whereas the 2d10 and 3d6 methods are weighted toward the middle.  Seemed like a great idea to me and it works very well for Warmachine.  Now, if you are smarter than me you already know I was pretty much wrong (or at least not very right).  If you don't know why then keep reading but the key is the fact that attack rolls are "opposed" rolls in Frostgrave (attacker and defender both roll, as opposed to Warmachine where the attacker rolls against a Target Number).

Assumptions/Definitions:

• For the simulation, I used 100,000 "random" rolls for each attack and defense roll, for each of the proposed distributions to to calculate the statistics for:  1d20, 2d10 and 3d6.  From above you can see it was more than enough to guarantee a good sample size by how uniform the graphs are.  
• To provide the absolute most clarity in the interpretation of the results I assumed the attacker and defender had the same pertinent stat lines with:  Fight +0, Armor 10, Health 10.  
• %HIT:  In order for a attack to "hit" the attackers roll + fight must be greater than the defenders roll + fight.  
• %DMG:  To inflict damage, you must score a "hit" and using the original attacker's roll + fight + modifier (some weapons grant extra damage or reduce damage, 0 in this exercise) - defender's armor must be greater than 0.  
• %H&D:  The combined chance to not only hit the defender but to damage the defender (%HIT * %DMG).
• AVG DMG:  The average amount of damage per hit.
• HITS2KILL:  Given the average damage how many hits to kill the defender
• SWINGS2KILL:  Given the %H&D, how many swings (attacks) to kill the defender

As you can see from the table above, the alternative approaches only have a marginal impact on the chance to hit (%HIT) but interestingly lowers the chance.  The follow on chance to damage, if you do hit (%DMG) is a little more interesting for a couple of reason.  Firstly, I expected this number to be more along the lines of 50% since (with armor 10) the attack roll would have to be greater than that, but I "think" the fact that it is an opposed roll is pushing %HIT rolls higher in the distribution (I ran this a couple of different ways with the same result, but I need to go back and look at the distributions to make sure).  The second is that the 2d10 method results in almost a 5% gain in chance to damage - I think this is because you've maintained the same top end range of possible results (a roll of 20) while reducing the lower end range (ie, you can't roll a 1).  Despite the 5% advantage in %DMG though, everything evens out much more closely if you look at the combined chance to hit and damage (%H&D).  Anyway, given how close all these numbers are it is a bit of a push which method to use until you get to looking at average damage and the related hits to kill and swings to kill.  Pretty significant impacts here based on the different distributions, 3d6 looks like it would really draw the game out.

Now, in the case of casting spells things are a little different and end up more as intended (since they are compared to a Target Number).  There is definitely a non-marginal impact and in retrospect, looking at the data, a possible good reason to stick with the as published 1d20 system.  Below is a graphs showing the probability curves for each method vs the spell casting Target Number.

Probability vs Target Number

You can see at the lower end of the TN, the alternative approaches give a better likelihood of success but the higher TNs successes are less likely.  

In both the case of fighting and spell casting, an argument could be made to utilize an alternative approach to tailor the game to the players desire.  Want your solider's to live longer, use 2d10 or even 3d6.  Maybe you want out of school casting to be harder, use an alternate.  I initially thought that the alternatives could be used to make your game more like "low" magic but they actually make a portion of your spells even easier to cast, so can't really do that.

Anyway, the reality is if you really wanted these things you could do it an easier way (IMO).  Want your solider's to live longer, bump the base armor stats for everyone up by +2 (or whatever you desire).  Bump the armor down if you want them to die quicker.  Want "low magic", bump all school TN modifiers up by +2.  "High" magic, bump them down.  Want just the out of school magic to be harder, bump those specific modifies up.

Well, I think I will keep my toes out of game design (or modification) from here on out.  To a degree.  Maybe.  At least for awhile...

Frostgrave

Last Saturday, my regular opponent, Mike and I met up at the local gaming store prepared for some miscellaneous gaming of:  Malifaux, Guildball and/or Frostgrave.  Malifaux was really only on the agenda in case some of the local Malifaux people showed up, which ended up not being the case.  So, Mike and I decided to give Frostgrave a run through.

Events conspired that morning to keep from putting a list together, so I headed over a little early to work on a Frostgrave list in case we got the opportunity.  For simplicity, and speed, I just hired a very basic list of apprentice and 6x infantrymen and everyone with standard equipment.  Interestingly enough, Mike showed up having taken a similar approach except with x3 infantrymen and x3 archers.

Semi-randomly, I chose enchanter for my wizard and hastily grabbed spells.  I thought enchanter would be great for giving out +1 weapons and armor to everyone, which I only did once.  Some of the "cool" spells I ended up taking were also near useless, because the neutral school difficulty rating put them out of reasonable reach.  Of note it is really not awesome when you cast heal on yourself and fail the roll causing yourself damage, LOL.  Mike's spell list seemed better thought out and afforded him some nice strategies during the game.

So it was my fishmen warband (Wrath of Kings Hadross models) against Mike's goblins lead by a witch in the standard scenario.  Mike won with only 2 goblin archers remaining and having fully frustrated every last one of the fishmen before their ultimate demise:  He employed a very solid tactic of casting telekinesis on the treasure tokens to bring them closer to his guys and then casting mud in front of his troops.  With no range attacks (except via spells), this left me at a bit of disadvantage.

Things I liked about the game played:

1. Fairly concise set of rules (later in this post you will see that I think this is a bit of a double edge sword though).
2. The spell schools, alignments and choices provide a nice depth to an otherwise heavy amount of parity.
3. Group activation with a "cost" such that you have to sometimes make difficult choices in whether or not to do it.
4. Use any models!  I see a future for some Confrontation and Alkemy models...

Things I think I will like about the game in the future:

1. While I really haven't digested the campaign system yet, I already see the potential for it forcing interesting choices/decisions.  For example, there are several spells that are out of game spells that might be very worthy of taking but then reducing you in game spell pool quite a bit.  Also, of course, there is question of how much risk to take with your wizard during campaign games.
2. Random creatures (we choose not to play with them for our first game).
3. The other scenarios, again I really haven't dug into them but I hope they are good because IMO the base scenario stinks (see below).

Things I am concerned about:

1. I am concerned about the scenarios.  As I just mentioned I really haven't dug into the scenarios yet but the base scenario (each person puts out 3 treasure tokens 9 inches from their table edge) stinks.  In the base scenario ultimately you "should" just place them exactly 9 inches from your table edge, rush them and the get them off the table forcing a draw.  There are only a few low probability ways for your opponent to stop this IF you put your treasure in clear line of sight.  Hopefully the other scenarios are more tactically challenging.
2. Archers seem a bit over powered.  They have the exact same cost as infantrymen but the infantrymen will get shot up crossing the board to get to them (wait for my next point before you scream terrain).  Additionally, the way melee is structured there is a risk as the "attacker" that you could loose and take damage but you don't have to worry about that if you are shooting a bow.  Unlike the infantrymen, the archer can always melee if you want to or if they get trapped, not quite as well as an infantrymen but decent enough.
3. I think the game was envisioned to be played on a terrain heavy board.  This would potentially offset the range combat advantage.  I actually prefer games that use lots of terrain but there are 3 main issues I have seen with terrain heavy games:  a) logistics of having that much terrain, b) understanding by both players of what all the terrain represents (rough ground, climbable, etc etc) and c) exactly how much to have such that range attack profiles are not now over costed.
4. As hinted at above, I sometimes find the rules to be a little to vague.  Without a clear definition of LoS, I was left unsure as to whether to use a true LoS interpretation or a more abstract one.  Also, combat is described as being in "contact" with the other figure.  Caveat, I may have missed some of the finer points that clarify some of these things, it was after all my first time through the rules and game.
5. Some specific rules are buried away in text (an example is that spellcasters can not cast if they are in combat).  Luckily the rules are short enough that this does not seem to be a major issue but I still feel a bit uncertain at times and finding that exact sentence to confirm consumes time.  I think this will be a non-factor after reading over the rules a second/third time but stands now as a concern.
6. As always with campaign systems, there is the fear of "run away."  A really good way to mitigate this is to keep campaigns short but balancing that with allowing a rewarding amount of character growth is difficult.  Perhaps the fact that only your wizard and apprentice level up helps manage this, but I can't say for sure without having played through a campaign.
7. I may not have all my facts straight here, but wizards get experience points for treasure removed from the board and from kills.  So buffing/non-combatant casters will suffer some in the campaign system compared to direct damage casters.  

Don't get the wrong impression because of my concerns.  I think Frostgrave is a good, solid game and I love the support it is getting:  A new campaign book, sellsword/captains, etc.  Plus it seems to have generated a lot of traction.  These concerns are not anything that will keep me from jumping in on a campaign if one gets going.  Is it better than some of the alternatives such as Otherworld, Mordheim, Song of Blades, Heroes, Regiments of Renown, etc - I don't know.  Don't really care since it seems to be a decent enough system that people around here might want to play.  Basically if the game system is decent enough and there is not an alternative I LOVE, then I am not going to fight an uphill battle to convert people.

Also of note.  Mike and I played our game utilizing 2d10 rather than the standard d20.  The reasoning was that 2d10 would provide a Gaussian distribution (like Warmachine) rather than a uniform distribution of a d20.  I am actually interested in quantifying the effect of this change along with the 3d6 approach.  Hmm, I wonder how exactly to approach that analysis.  I do know I will be lazy and do it via Monte Carlo's rather than figure out the probabilities with math.  lol