Holiday Gift Guide 2018

I could have sworn we have done this numerous times before but all I could find was the Guide from 2014…  Oh well! Here come the recommendations for this year’s holiday season!

(By the way – those recommendations by Aki? They are still relevant. As are the Top 5 Boardgames I listed in February.)

This year I have been working in my local gaming store Puolenkuun Pelit (Tampere) and have quite a bit better grasp of thing I would like to recommend for holiday gifts. I have a few absolute favorites so let’s get them out of the way first. Continue reading

A Newcomer’s Review: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition

As Lauri said in his review, I have never played or read any edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or WFRP. My own experiences in RPGs are mostly horror and then American indie games during the last 10 years. My tastes have been drifting as of late, though, which is why I was eager to set my eyes upon a relaunch of a British classic.

Disclaimer: Cubicle 7 was kind enough to send us a pdf for review.

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Review: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition was published by Cubicle 7 quite recently. They were kind enough to send us a pdf to review and we will be reviewing this game in two parts. This first part is written by Lauri who has been there since (almost) the beginning. And the second part is the newcomers view written by Ville who has not played any edition of WFRP (published later).

Grognard’s Grumbles

Disclaimer: We haven’t actually played this fourth edition yet so all of my opinions are based on my earlier knowledge and reading the book so they must be taken with a hint of salt.

As said in the intro I have played WFRP a very long time. I started in the 90’s with the Enemy Within campaign (as player) and have GM’ed every edition since. My most active era of Warhammer was in 2002-2010 when I ran several campaign, wrote for Liber Fanatica and created the Daily Empire as a base for all fan material. So my approach for this game couldn’t be farther from Ville’s view which should create an interesting contrast to our views.

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Sandbox on Rails

Sandbox campaigns are a dream I have chased for years. A campaign where the players participate in the story, create memorable content and I act only as a referee. I know that many people chase the same white rabbit and I’m going to discuss my methods of catching it.

We finished our latest season of Eldritch Sigils just last night. It was one of the most epic season with game starting in 2099 and ending in 1770s after a detour in about 2300. When we started this campaign exactly ten months ago I had no idea where the story would take us. I was once again trying to force my players to play with me on my sandbox.

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Designing Eldritch Sigils

Last Sunday I published the beta version of rules for Eldritch Sigils. This is a game I have been working on for about five years. I have actually published earlier drafts over the years but this was the first time it actually has consistency and it is actually playable.

This has been a long process and one that is still in the works. But now that the rules are “out there” I thought it would be a good chance to talk about them. Since game design is quite an interesting topic I hope that sharing my process might produce new ideas or at least be curious.

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ZWEIHÄNDER is complete!

Back in the day I used to play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for years. It was “my D&D” (since I never really played that). I have a lot of memories about that game, I have made quite a few fan supplements for it, heck, I was even the other admin for long forgotten HAMMERZEIT (web site for WFRP3) and have been running the Daily Empire apparently for seven years…

Every now and then I have tried to get back into the game that really sold roleplaying for me but having been spoiled by Apocalypse World it has never really worked out.

Back while I was really active “some dude” got an idea of remaking the 2nd edition game. Since I really  (REALLY) loved the 2nd edition I was immediately on board on this. Then time passed. Games Workshop decided it was better to just destroy the Old World (with Age of Suckmar). I even played a little D&D! But yesterday “that dude” finally did it.

“That dude” is naturally Daniel Fox and his Grim & Perilous Studios. And the game is called ZWEIHÄNDER.

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Trying Out: Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game

boxFantasy Flight Games’ Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game is a brand new version of the ageless classic Warhammer Quest. Both games are set in the Old World and feature a group of heroes going into a dungeon to fight a bunch of monsters with quite high odds of them all dying. The original game had miniatures and cardboard rooms but this brand new version only has what FFG is famous of doing: cards, more cards, custom dice and counters. And naturally one of the most disordered rulebook there is.

When this new version of the Warhammer Quest was announced I could not help but to feel a kind of déjà vu. Fantasy Flight Games taking an old classic and turning it into a whole different beast with a boatload of counters on top? Yes – they did that with the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Since I have always liked the approach WFRP 3rd edition had (even though I know a lot of players really disliked it) I was immediately sold on this new approach too. I have nothing against painting miniatures and playing with them (far from it) but if someone is doing a reboot they should at least consider about making it a bit different than the last time (I’m looking at you Film Industry). Otherwise why would I even by the remake?

But since a very few people are interested in the story about “how I bought this new game” I’ll get straight into the juice stuff. Trying out Warhammer Quest: the Adventure Card Game!

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About the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

If the rumours are to be believed Games Workshop publishes a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles during this summer. I am one of those who actually believe that Fantasy Flight Games might rekindle their ownership on the rpg version of Warhammer. There is nothing to prove this (so it isn’t even a rumour) and I have been known to be wrong before. But still I think it could happen.

This post is not about speculating of what would, could or should happen. As someone who has been playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game through each edition I thought I could summarise some of my experiences with it.

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Getting Ready for Ropecon – Lauri

Ropecon is a bit early this year. I’ve grown accustomed to it taking place in July but this year it is only a few weeks from now. Even though I have known it for quite a some time I only recently became aware that we have to get ready for it sooner. I actually managed to get one of the last rooms from the hotel nearby but not all members of our proud Guild have been so lucky.

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Painting for pleasure

Since moving to our new apartment I have had a small room (well, closet to be precise) for painting. After a few years of hiatus I started pretty eagerly with painting again and even posted a couple of ramblings about paints and what I had done. It all died pretty quickly as I am not easily pleased with my own painting. And then there was the unfortunate loss of inspiration with WFRP…

But after that I have every now and then painted something. And it has been relaxing. No pressure on painting large armies to battle with. No campaign to paint perfect minis for. Just using some random models from the vast collections I have hoarded over the years.  Continue reading