Gears of War Board game

[link]

I like Gears of War. The game is fun, and the story is fantastic. And to have a Board Game based on it is just too cool.

There's about 30 figures in the set, so that's a bunch of Locust and a handful of player characters. I hope there's a Carmine in there. Then again, he'll die so quickly.

If I got Aaron into playing it, then he'll run up to every enemy and try to chainsaw them in half.

Judging from the setup, I'm imagining that the game plays much like the D&D Board Games. You have a set of square tiles with various designs on them which the players pull out and place at random to create your ever growing map. With each tile placed, place down Locust determined by a deck of monster cards. As you kill each locust you gain a reward based on the rewards deck of cards.

Then depending on the scenario, particularly designed tiles are set within the randomly organised pile. So you will reach your destination, but at a randomly determined time. With each character having their own special abilities, it can either extend or reduce the time it takes, or change how easily they kill something, or how the enemy can retaliate.

It looks fun and I'm pretty excited about it. Though I still need to play the D&D board games with the fellas...

So don't go there?

I'm getting sick of some people whinging about the local restaurant here. I keep hearing “Oh they're so expensive, they're so ridiculous, you would've thought that because we're regulars that they'd give us cheap shit.”

Okay, so they're not cheap. However, the point of a business is to make money. To make money, you have to develop a profit. To develop a profit, you have to raise costs. They're a small business who also like to have something new and interesting in every so often to get customers in. A Gimmick, if you will.

But when you ask for 1 slice of toast, nothing else, don't complain about the price when you could bloody well go to the bakery, get an entire loaf for $3, maybe less, and use the friggin toaster in the kitchen.

“Oh but I like it thick like they have there.” So do what they do: get a bread knife and cut it.

“Oh but I only wanted one slice.” So put the rest in the freezer so you can use it next time you're needing some fibre.

And just because “Oh Matts a Regular there” doesn't mean I know what the friggin price is of a single slice of toast.

If you don't like it, pack up and go elsewhere.

For someone's sake

I just witnessed a waste of time. A lady was crossing through thick traffic lined up from the lights. The only clear lane of this three lane road is the turn off into the shopping complex. She was running along me a lady driving down the empty lane more than 50 metres away slowed down to let the lady pass, of whom went to a jog to give more room to let the driver continue without having to slow down much.

You would think that, in the role of the driver, you would just keep going as if nothing had happened.

No, this lady felt obligated to stop her car, toot the horn of her small car, and start yelling at this poor pedestrian from the drivers seat. She didn't wind down her windows mind you, so the only comprehensible of this lady was that she liked waving her arms above her head.

Then she drove on, the pedestrian ignoring her while i viewed the ordeal from the cold shade of the bus stop, where i came to the conclusion that some people fight for the sake of fighting.

Large Scale Warmachine

Privateer Press are introducing an alternate system for their Warmachine/Hordes games called Unbound. As far as I know, the system changes to instead of having “My turn, your turn”, it goes to an alternating group activation.

Reminiscing back to when I played a 2000 point MK1 game with Scotty, it was long and tedious. It took the better part of an hour just to get my own turn done. And Scott decimated my entire Army in one turn which was a little depressing.

So the alternating activations sounds like a good change. Rather than sitting down for the better part of and hour doing nothing but bookkeeping, you're shortening that to only a few minutes between turns. And by the end of the round, the game has changed significantly for both armies, rather than leaning towards one side who had a rather good turn, though that may still happen in Unbound, but the other side at least has a moment to change the game before they're completely overrun.

I've not had much experience with this style of turn taking, which is limited to Dystopian Wars. I'm having fun with that, but it's only got a small number of models. The points costs may reach up to 2000, but the model count isn't as significant. You'll always want units in your Warmachine list, so you'll want to cater to that which will bring your model count up significantly.

But the point is it gives me an idea of what the system is like. Turn after turn, taking out units before they even activate. It just seems like a good way to change a high point game, making it more involved than a waiting game.

Cheapening the Re-experience

So when playing games, you want to keep it entertaining. And entertainment comes in difficulty, challenges, awkward positions. When given options to play slightly, or significantly, differently, you don't want to be able to run around like a God, practically invulnerable to any challenges that lay ahead. That's what the Easy Difficulty is for.

While playing Crysis 2, I found things a little... too easy.

With your Nanosuit, you can activate modules which change or improve upon your style of play. There's features for all three modes, Armour, Infiltration and Power, and your Nano Visor. And you buy them as you collect nano-catalyst from killing aliens called Ceph (Short for Cephalopod – AKA: Squids).

The Modules are varied and the best ones are really expensive, and require a couple of runs through to collect enough catalyst, but the question is: Can an expensive item be worth more than you pay for it?

One of the expensive modules is Enhanced Stealth, which lowers energy consumption rate.

I ran through the game using stealth as much as possible. I mastered the art of shifting between cover under the guise of stealth without being noticed. I was slowly becoming Stealth Kill incarnate. I could shoot any target with a sniper rifle without leaving a trace of my presence. Infiltration is for the weak.

And then I collected enough nano-catalyst to buy the Enhanced Stealth module. Now while it doesn't give abilities like silent footfalls or revealing your enemies path, it simply extends the period of time you're in Infiltration mode. So instead of jumping between cover, I can move across the map if I don't have to jump or fall, before I have to consider hiding.

Fair enough, I can choose not use the module and just stick with what I have been using, but should this option be in the game? So much time spent getting exhilarated at the chance of getting spotted getting tossed away just because you “worked hard for it”.

It feels a bit of a rip having too an calming experience going through the same game again.

"MAKE WAY FOR DA DEFFROLLA!"

So I had a long hard thought about what to do about a Promobike. I couldn't figure it out. Though I got the idea from it, I didn't like the idea of a Motorbike with a trolley on the back. Not even a pushbike looked cool.

I thought about using the standard 40k Ork bikes, but didn't see much room to 'advertise'. If I covered up the sides, or put something over the top, it would look pretty weird. More like a float than anything else. Or a boat. That could float...

I thought about Sand Surfer, you know the surf boards with sails but given a set of wheels so they can just go across sand? Yeah, but it just didn't make... sense.

What about a Buggy? Okay, probably a bit better, but where do I advertise? Maybe make him like a Sprint Car, and give him room to advertise there.

Then today, I thought about these fan factor models and said to myself “These guys could be honorary members of the team. Especially the Squiggoth. He'd be #17.”

Somehow my mind rolled over to the thought of a team member actually Dying, and subbing in the player with an honorary member. Such as the Squiggoth.

“What about the bike?” I said to myself. “How would we play him?”
“Well,” I responded “We'd just play him as if he had a Deathroller.”

Then it struck me. A deathroller bike? That'd be AWESOME! Make it a giant Blood Ball with extra spikes, put a sweet engine on the back and maybe the Sprint Car roof on top and Bob's your uncle.

It'd be pretty hard to put on a 25mm base, but I'll give it a go. I'd probably have to make it like a Monocycle in that case.

"WAAAGH IF YA HORNY" or How to build Fan Factor

First thing I thought of when I got home was “How will I mount a Scoreboard onto this Sucker?” Naturally it'll be on a Howdah just behind the drivers seat. And I'd make it a scorecard sort and have Orks behind it changing the cards to keep track.

Next is where will I put the Promokopta? I'd have to give it somewhere to park while it's not being used. How about on the Squiggoth? The main howdah is for people to travel in, so why not build a landing pad on top of it? Instead of having a H in a circle, do the Ork Blood Bowl team logo.

Otherwise, paint the side of the Howdah with the Blood Bowl Logo and “SKARBOYZ BIGGIST FAN” on the other. Up the back, an Ork Yelling out behind and holding a banner saying “WAAAGH IF YA HORNY!”

The Promokopta is going to be mostly custom made. I have a Garlic and Horseradish tablet bottle. Turn it on it's side, add Helicopter Rotors and skis, use the open top as a Jet engine, add a cockpit to the front (bottom of bottle) and if I want twinlink Rokkit Launchers, I have a pair of PS2-USB adaptors.

If I were talented enough, I'd open up the sides of the bottle to make extended platforms for Orks to sit/shoot from. The Rokkit launchers would have to be filled with actual rockets, so I'm thinking having one filled to the brim with rockets, and the other firing a piglet. Kel gave me that idea when we saw the Farrow Razorback, a rocket launcher held by pig men. I reckon it'd be awesome for the commentators.

“The crowd goes into a frenzy and pours into the pitch! What's this? The Kopta is getting into it too and... He's porked some poor sod in the head with a flying piglet!”