Here's a thread to talk about any sort of gaming played with expensive army men. In order to be as inclusive as possible, any kind of figure-based wargames are welcome, e.g. BattleLore, Memoir '44, Warhammer, etc.
Some other threads:
Warhammer/40k/Miniatures
Rec. a fast, affordable Miniatures Game
Miniatures
Wargaming: How to get started playing Warhammer
Need help picking a tabletop game
Heroscape impressions and opinions
Here's my latest foray, Dust Tactics:
So far I've only played the "quick start" which just has you deploy units and not worry about advanced mechanics like cover and special abilities. My initial impressions are very favorable. The grid system makes play very streamlined and eliminates fiddly range and LoS determinations. You alternate activating units through the round and get two actions per unit. These can be move-move, move-attack, attack-move, or sustained attack, where you can reroll any misses. Units have a few different weapons and can attack different targets. All in all, the combat system is easy to comprehend but still offers variety and tactical play. The ultimate litmus test: my wife liked it.
The game is relatively new so there aren't a lot of units out yet, but air units are slated as well. If you're intriqued in the slightest definitely check out the BGG page linked above. This current core set is being replaced with a revised edition that will be a little less but you get less in the box. The current one is a better buy.
Battleship Galaxies is out, and it looks hot. I can't talk about it though, because I've been exercising so much will-power not to buy it for a while, since I just bought another Memoir '44 expansion. But look how hot it is:
I hadn't seen Dust Tactics yet, but it looks pretty damn hot too. I think reading this thread will turn out to have been very unwise.
A bunch of guys from work and I have just gotten into Warmachine and Hordes. Its a sort of steampunk themed collectible war game. High powered central warlocks/warcasters control a pack of beasts/steam-robots called warjacks and you can flesh the group out with infantry, cavalry and artillery as well as mercenaries and other strong individual characters.
It scales really well from tiny games to huge ones, so you can get started with a $40 purchase if you know someone who has the rules already.
Here's the first painted model I'm really proud of, a Cygnar Firefly
I'll do the base at some point.. 
It's kind of sad... I posted that getting started with WH40K post like 4 years ago and I still haven't gotten around to buying an army.
I am totally buying Battleship Galaxies. I keep meaning to look for it but I am never out at a toy store lately.
And Warmachine is pretty awesome. Fantastic lore, great rules and I love the idea of "Page 5" in the rulebooks (you've got to read it to appreciate it). I don't have any minis (see the WH40k post) but I've played with papercraft ones.
Friend of mine picked up Battleship Galaxies, hoping I'll get a chance to try it out this week. Looks like a lot of fun.
Heroscape is great fun, although sadly out of print. You can still find sets around but they are done making it at this point.
I've never gotten into actual miniatures gaming. Played AT-43 once and it was interesting but just not my thing. Dust Tactics does look pretty coo, though. I like that it seems to be a hybrid of board and miniature games.
Wow. Dust Tactics and Battleship Galaxies both look neat, but I still can't find many people who will brave Tide of Iron with me, so they would really just be taking up space.
Looking back, I wonder if the GW folks who made HeroQuest and Battlemasters realized what they were doing. You really shouldn't distribute drugs to children.
Since moving away from "back home" where all my nerd friends are, I've not been able to do much mini gaming in the last six years. We were just getting into Axis and Allies Miniatures when I left.
Picked up Battleship Galaxies, played a single game (wrong of course!) that was a lot of fun, hopefully I some of my friends will be regulars. I'm in central MA if someone is interested in trying to hook up and play.
Wow. Dust Tactics and Battleship Galaxies both look neat, but I still can't find many people who will brave Tide of Iron with me, so they would really just be taking up space.
I'm a fan of Tide of Iron. Enough so that I went through the effort to magnetize my set! Like you, though, I wish I got to play it more often. Really the biggest problem with the game is that the scenarios aren't particularly well-balanced, which can make for an unenjoyable first experience for some.
Battleship Galaxies is out, and it looks hot. I can't talk about it though, because I've been exercising so much will-power not to buy it for a while, since I just bought another Memoir '44 expansion. But look how hot it is:
I hadn't seen Dust Tactics yet, but it looks pretty damn hot too. I think reading this thread will turn out to have been very unwise.
That looks awesome. I just watched a review of it and the mechanics seem pretty sound as well. Those figs are just so pretty!
Played Battleship Galaxies this weekend for the first time, and my buddy and I really enjoyed it. We did the intro scenario, where the cards and ships are chosen for you. We immediately wanted to try drafting our own deck and ships using the point system, and playing as the different factions. Here's hoping that it hits the table enough to do this.
We talked about Battleship Galaxies in the last Rabbit Con's podcast. It's probably worth a bit of a listen.
Since moving away from "back home" where all my nerd friends are, I've not been able to do much mini gaming in the last six years. We were just getting into Axis and Allies Miniatures when I left.
I'm willing to bet that you could find a new crew of many players in Wisconsin— just about anywhere in Wisconsin.
For my part, I mostly play historical miniatures. This whole mass-produced figure trend continues to scare me.
Gravey wrote:Battleship Galaxies is out, and it looks hot. I can't talk about it though, because I've been exercising so much will-power not to buy it for a while, since I just bought another Memoir '44 expansion. But look how hot it is:
I hadn't seen Dust Tactics yet, but it looks pretty damn hot too. I think reading this thread will turn out to have been very unwise.
That looks awesome. I just watched a review of it and the mechanics seem pretty sound as well. Those figs are just so pretty!
That just arrived and is sitting the corner of my office. Now to find someone to play it with...
I've got a few new pieces for Dust: Tactics coming to add artillery and command units. Might have to add Battleship: Galaxies to the pile after payday.
We talked about Battleship Galaxies in the last Rabbit Con's podcast. It's probably worth a bit of a listen.
That's what sold me on it, then I was walking through a games store later and there it was. I could see why it got talked up so positively, and as there was no price tag on the boxes I started mentally computing my impulse-buy threshold while the clerk looked up the price. Unfortunately (or not) it exceeded that, so the wallet survived (that, anyway).
Battleship Galaxies get! Or got, the other week, but only had the chance to play it the other night. Mrs. Gravey was kind enough to humour me and we played the intro scenario. First impressions: very enjoyable. I was told I could field a capitol ship and, when the enemy's ships get within a range, launch a squadron of fighters from the hold to deliver swift electric death, and I did exactly that. So it's already worth the price of admission.
The minis and board look great. Outfitting ships with upgrades is satisfying, and the deck building should be a lot of fun and tense in that Dominion style.
It hasn't really seemed like a very tactical game yet though. Maybe that's just the intro scenario, but where I was hoping for a cardboard rendition of a stately and strategic game of Homeworld, it was more of a medieval field battle: both sides just rushing at each other until they're within range. More "terrain" (insofar as space has terrain—discovery tiles, etc) might help make the battlefield more dynamic, as well as getting a better grasp of different weapon ranges and maneuvering fast ships to block or at least hem in slower ones.
Looking forward to playing more and getting deeper into it. Also looking forward to seeing what sets the future holds—new units, new factions?
Anyone ever played Dystopian Wars? I was in my FLGS for an RPG a couple of weeks back and saw a game going on and got curious, but the rulebook is pretty thick and I'm not sure I want to dive in to something really intricate. (By "intricate" I'm thinking along the lines of Battletech, with tracking tons of little details and stuff.)
Still, the Prussian Air Fortress really, really makes me want to give the company my money. And it's HUGE; probably four or five inches from nose to tail.
Crossposting this from the "Show me something you created" thread as this was just wargaming terrain construction technique.
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My son is making a castle for a school group project. He got tasked with making some sort of base for it. Apparently he was supposed to paint a piece of cardboard. My boy? I don't think so.
So we put this together:
Nice, LM, very nice. That's absolutely going to outclass the popsicle-stick castle that's inevitably going on it.
Nice, LM, very nice. That's absolutely going to outclass the popsicle-stick castle that's inevitably going on it.
Thanks! Yeah, I know there's going to be some sort of lopsided posterboard "face only a mother can love" construction sitting on it. But hopefully he'll get to keep the terrain and we can push goblins around on it or something. It'll be a great base for one of my Hirst Arts buildings.
I've got a few new pieces for Dust: Tactics coming to add artillery and command units. Might have to add Battleship: Galaxies to the pile after payday.
I've played minis games for years and years (with my most recent entry being GW LOTR and Warhammer fantasy) and wish I had more hours in the week for more. This DUST Tactics caught my eye a couple of weeks ago and looks good. Have you gotten to play much beyond collecting? What do you think of it now?
Honestly, not really. I got to play several games with my brother while he was up visiting and I really liked it though. Before that I had just played a couple of intro scenarios with the family. With my brother we used the rules for cover and LoS that really made a difference. The short range troops are a lot more useful when there's cover and they aren't blasted out of the game before they can close.
Now that the kids are settled in with school and Winter is Coming I'm hoping we'll have time to sit down and play more. It's a quick game, it's just new and we're a bit slow to git going with it. Main holdup is that I need to setup the squads for easier identification. When unpainted they all look the same.
Could we substitute the following exchange for most of the games we could list here?
Q: [Game X] caught my eye a couple of weeks ago and looks good. Have you gotten to play much beyond collecting?A: Honestly, not really.
That is an awesome piece of terrain, LM! I'd be very interested in your process. PM me?
Someone asked that in the other thread, so I'll just copy that reply to here since it's more topical to this thread anyway. The Hirst Art links have more detail and in-process pictures too. Plus Bruce Hirst has a TON of awesome "Tips and Tricks" pages on different modeling techniques. This process is really cool as it's more about applying a bit of patience and technique than it is any real artistic talent.
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The technique is explained in detail here on the Hirst Arts site. The actual method is about 2/3rds of the way down.
It's two stacks of 2" pink foamboard insulation. I rough cut it with a Foam Factory hotwire foam cutter, but it's easily doable with a bread knife as shown in the Hirst Arts guide. Then we cut the rock fissures by making random vertical cuts with an exacto knife to remove pieces. After that, we made the same thing in tighter horizontal cuts. To get the chunk look we then rubbed it with hands and fingers to remove the loose chunk and break off the foam.
The paint is a three stage layering process. I airbrushed the dark grey on to get it down into all the crevices. The medium gray is brushed on with a only mildly wet brush. There's a light grey layer that is drybrushed on last, but it doesn't show in the picture very much. It's really more of an effect than a color layer. This is well described with photos on the Hirst Arts site too.
I sifted dirt from the back yard through a fine colander for the dirt. We just brushed on thinned white glue and then poured it round. The grass is just model supply grass available at miniatures gaming shops or hobby stores that carry model railroading stuff. It's applied with the same brushed on thinned glue method. The shrubbery I made by blending up soft foam with a mix of green paint but it's also available like the grass. It's just called "ground foam" I believe.
The base is just 1/4" MDF that I traced the rough outline of the terrain onto and cut out with a reciprocating saw and "broke" the edge with a foam sanding block. Then I rubbed a walnut brown stain on the rim of it before gluing it to the piece.
Picking this thread back up since I am looking at both Battleships and Dust for some potential "light" miniature gaming. I'm also checking out Star Trek: Fleet Captains.
Did any of you folks get a chance to dive further into these games and do you have recommendations? I'm wanting something miniature based that can be played in a 1-3 hour time frame. I've read some reviews of BS that say it just turns into a race to the middle of the map that results in a final slug fest with little to no tactics; however, others say it's just fine. Dust looks like it might have more depth, but I don't want to get into the "you need to buy x more expansions for the game to shine" pit.
Any thoughts on other games are welcome, and if this needs to move over to the board game thread I can do that, but I'm looking for miniature games in particular.
Thanks.
Im still playing Warmachine with the folks at work. Its the longest going run of sticking with 1 game that I've had in years. Still loving it. Im curious if anyone plays, or would like to learn to play on Vassal. It's an online sort of table-top sim. It can show you your minis, a table and gives you lots of tools but has no game logic or rules programmed into it, so its a sort of digital tabletop.
Vassal client: here
Warmachine module: here
The Warmachine module is made with permission from Privateer Press, so it even has real names and approved sprites representing the models. I'm just getting the basics of Vassal down but would love to help someone else get into it to have some GWJers to play with PM me
Im still playing Warmachine with the folks at work. Its the longest going run of sticking with 1 game that I've had in years. Still loving it. Im curious if anyone plays, or would like to learn to play on Vassal. It's an online sort of table-top sim. It can show you your minis, a table and gives you lots of tools but has no game logic or rules programmed into it, so its a sort of digital tabletop.
Vassal client: here
Warmachine module: hereThe Warmachine module is made with permission from Privateer Press, so it even has real names and approved sprites representing the models. I'm just getting the basics of Vassal down but would love to help someone else get into it to have some GWJers to play with
Always interested in learning something new and unfortunately I think virtual is the only way I am going to get to play any of these games these days. PM sent.
Oh interesting! I've been looking at Warmachine but am never going to plonk down the money on models. If I get it set up and working, I'll PM you!
I have time this afternoon...
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