GARPA lands with three not-yet-funded projects that all look tres cool, and one that did make the cut that looks overwhelmingly cool.
Battle of the Electric Vikings (Black Slither Games) $2400 of $4700, ends 6 August 2014
Rock out with your c… well, you know the rest. Black Slither Games gives everyone a chance to be their own heavy metal poet by piecing together your own song titles, lyrics, and albums from a bag of word tiles with the most metal of meaningful choices. Who cares if you win? It only matters if you ROCK! And that you pledge over at the Kickstarter page. That’s important, too.
Great chips-and-soda game that is familiar in gameplay, but with just enough added complexity to keep players engaged throughout the game. Combat is nuanced but still fast-flowing, and players have to make serious strategic choices at every turn.
Review by Brant Guillory, about 7 years ago 🙂
This review originally appeared in Scrye Magazine
Number of players: 2-6
Designed for ages: 12 and up
Learning Curve: Low to Medium
Playing time: 1-3 hours
Pros: Visually grand; familiar mechanics; lots of choices for players
Cons: Backstory irrelevant to gameplay; some game effects not clearly explained
Dust, Fantasy Flight’s new “big box” game, is based on the comics of the same name, in which history was altered by the discovery of alien technology on a polar expedition early in WWII. You now know more than you need to know about the backstory of the game in order to play it. But don’t let that get you down, because Dust is a great game, regardless of the story behind it.
Players are trying to gain victory points by controlling power sources, conquering their opponents, and dominating certain numbers on the map. They do so by marshalling their armies, and balancing the manufacture of forces with the usage of them. Continue reading →
So the 4th of the July, we’re bringing 4 excellent GARPA possibilities. No, we won’t bring you 19 on the 19th.
BOAR, MBT Expansion (GMT Games) 203 Orders to date – not there yet
GMT’s modern-day tank shootout MBT has the usual suspects: the US 7th Army and the GSFG. But there’s plenty of tank-blasting goodness up on the Lüneberger Heide where the British Army of the Rhine was facing down an equally vast array of Soviet forces. The MBT games are scaled at the squad and individual vehicle level, ensuring tight focus on tactical shootouts where a bayonet charge is always possible. MBT is on p500 itself, but while you’re over there, get an order in for BAOR, too, and refight the whole shebang back in the late ‘80s.
There’s always something cool to see at Origins. Here’s what stuck out for our team…
click to enlarge images
Barthheart: Well, this was my first ever Origins and my first con of this size. WOW! 5 days whizzed by… but maybe because I had such a great time with the GrogHeads and GM’ing games of Sergeant’s Miniature Game. I managed 5 games in total and all the people who came to play were great sports and had fun… not hard when SMG is a fun game to play. Husband and wife teams, father and son teams, old, young just great people out to have a fun time. The people from Lost Battalion Games, makers of SMG, were very helpful in starting our games, gave us some fantastic prizes to hand out and also gave me some very nice swag for GM’ing their game.
I also helped some of the vendors setup. We were helping Decision Games setup and it was hard to not start shopping right then. I wandered by their booth later on and they remember who I was and asked if I was interested in play testing a new tactical space game they were working on. We played for about 2 hours. Fun game, nice people. They took my name and email and are going to set me up with a printed play test copy when they get them.
I managed to not break my wallet and only bought RAF and some extra soldier minis for SMG. Decision Games released their new monster Atlantic Wall for the con….. REALLY nice looking game with a huge map, 11+ sheets of counters… only $240 at the con…. so tempted but it would have never gotten played only taken out and fondled every few years.
Overall, great fun with great people. It was nice to be able to put faces to the screen names at GrogHeads.
Hope I get invited and can attend next year.
The GrogLoot that some of our folks came home with ~
Dog not included. And yes, ninja dice came home with a few of us.
The Pokemon cards were for #1 son. Not pictured: the My Little Pony for the daughter.
Not sure where the greeting cards were from, but there’s a lot of game there.
This week’s GARPA might be short on titles (only 3), but it’s long on success – they’ve all made the cut and will be adorning tabletops near you this year.
Scotland Rising (Worthington Publishing) $5000 of $2500, ends 20 July 2014
C’mon, now – you’ve seen Braveheart, right? Scottish Wars of Independence ringing a bell? And as a wargamer and history buff, you must know that we’re coming up on the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, right? Well, not only that, but there’s a Scottish independence vote coming up in a few months, too. So what better time than to take a trip back through history and check out Worthington’s upcoming game on the Battle of Bannockburn. And if they hit their stretch goals, you’ll get the battles of Stirling Bridge and Falkirk, too, which should satisfy anyone’s desire for 14th-century hack-and-slash combat in the Scottish border country. But they only hit all those stretch goals if you go plunk down your coins on the Kickstarter page, right?
