Tag: Airboy

08/12/16

GrogHeads Reviews Munchkin Marvel

Superheroes come to the beloved Munchkin series.  Is it Super fun? ~

Avery Abernethy, 11 August 2016

MM-coverMunchkin Marvel is the 23rd core game in the Munchkin line sold by Steve Jackson Games. For those unfamiliar with Munchkin, it is a table top card game. You have an avatar. You can equip your avatar with armor, helmet, hand items, boots, and other items. You can obtain allies. However well or poorly equipped your character is you kick down the door. A trap may explode in your face. You may get free treasure. Or you may have a monster attack you. If you beat the monster you get its treasure. If you lose, you can try to run away. If you don’t run away successfully upon your loss, bad things happen. If you beat a monster you go up a level. Other things can help you go up levels. If you reach level 10 then you win. It is a pretty simple game.

What makes Munchkin such a fun game is the give and take between the players. Munchkin encourages both cooperation and back-stabbing. Many cards can be played to help your character, or can be played to strengthen a monster to defeat another player. There is a lot of wheeling, dealing, begging and whining within a munchkin game. You can split treasures, bribe, make promises, all in hopes of getting your lowly level one munchkin to level ten and victory.

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08/3/16

GrogHeads Reviews Tidal Effects from Andrew Heller

Airboy reviews Heller’s follow-up to Gray Tide in the East ~

Avery Abernethy, 03 August 2016

Tidal Effects is the sequel to Gray Tide in the East. In the previous book the Kaiser orders the German Army in 1914 to respect Belgium’s neutrality after Imperial Russia and France declare war on Germany. The British Empire never enters World War 1. Germany and Austria-Hungary crush Russia and annex large portions of European Russia including all of Poland, the Ukraine and the Baltics. France is bled white trying to attack in unfavorable terrain. Germany gives France favorable peace terms taking several relatively useless colonies including Martinique in the Caribbean Sea. At the end of Gray Tide in the East Germany is the dominant land power in Europe.

Tidal Effects contains two novelettes: High Tide and Rip Tide. In High Tide several members of the Imperial German Foreign Service and a high ranking Naval officer manage to start building a substantial naval base in Martinique. tide-mapSubstantial progress on this naval base is accomplished without the knowledge of the Kaiser and the rest of the Imperial Cabinet. The USA learns of the base and must decide if they want to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. Tidal Effects includes basics of naval espionage, isolationist politics of the USA early in the 20th century and foreign policy. The central conflict centers on the ability of the US President to get enough political support to keep the hugely powerful Germany from getting a foothold in North America without starting a major naval war. The Kaiser is maddened that his subordinates put him in this position but also wants to maximize the political and military gains possible from this situation.   The entire story is plausible given the military, economic, political and foreign policy situation in this alternate history.

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03/20/16

GrogHeads Reviews Knights of Pen and Paper 2

Lightweight RPG adventuring on your computer ~

Avery Abernethy, 20 March 2016

Knights of Pen and Paper 2 is a light and unique adaptation of a table-top Dungeons and Dragons game brought to the computer. The “players” sit across a table from a game master who describes the game. Quests take place, monsters appear and combat ensues. The game master describes the world situation and stylized enemies appear which must be slain by your party. The graphics are retro-cheesy 1990s style and the music uses every single aspect available of 8-bit sound cards memorable to those of us who played computer RPGs in the 1990s.

Combat is uber-simple. An initiative roll sets the order of action for everyone involved in the combat. Only one action can take place during a character’s turn. Character choice per combat round are either using a normal attack, using an item, casting an attack spell if you are a spell caster, using a special attack if you are a fighter type, or using a special character ability if you have one. Each character can do one of only six choices per combat round. There is no tricking, sneaking, or otherwise avoiding enemies. It is kill or be killed in this pixilated realm.

No Enlightment Here

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02/22/16

GrogHeads Reviews
The Cinder Spires: the Aeronaut’s Windlass

Airboy reviews Jim Butcher’s Steampunk series opener ~

Avery Abernethy, 22 February 2016

The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher is an action packed, steampunk influenced start to a new series. The population inhabits “spires” which are huge cities on large towers above the surface of the planet. The surface world is too dangerous for ordinary people but contains valuable resources and vicious animal life.

AeroThe major power technology are crystals. Tiny crystals provide light and minor power. Major crystals which are almost impossible to create can power large airships. Envision wooden Man-O-War flying through the air with cannons and inefficient power lasers. Hand weapons are hand sized power crystals and sabers. There are strange creatures, rare and unbalanced magic users who understand how crystals work, and daring traders, naval fleets and privateers flying the skies.

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01/27/16

GrogHeads Reviews Heroes of Steel

Dungeon Crawling Underground!  But how does it play? ~

By Avery Abernethy

 

Heroes of Steel is a turn based, combat RPG set in an underground world. Your four characters follow the traditional meme of a medieval world. This is a small party, turn based, combat sim. There is a story to string the combat along, but you have no choices in character personality or alignment. You are good. Your enemies are evil. You need to kill all of the evil.

To strike down the evil hordes you have a party composed of a fighter, a cleric, a thief and a wizard. There is one variant for each character type. For example, your cleric can be based more on healing or more on combat. The thief can be a bow equipped sniper who opens chests and detects traps. Or your thief can be more focused on a stealthy hand-to-hand combat while also opening locked chests and detecting traps.

HofSteel-Your fighter

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