Turns Out Joss Whedon Is Funny... Who Knew?

So if you missed the news, there's evidently going to be a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie coming out. Only it's not going to have Joss involved at all. Entertainment Weekly asked Joss for his opinion. You can follow this link to see the article about it, or if you're too lazy, just read Joss' response below.

Kristin, I'm glad you asked for my thoughts on the announcement of Buffy the cinema film. This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths—just because they can't think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself.

Obviously I have strong, mixed emotions about something like this. My first reaction upon hearing who was writing it was, "Whit Stillman AND Wes Anderson? This is gonna be the most sardonically adorable movie EVER." Apparently I was misinformed. Then I thought, "I'll make a mint! This is worth more than all my Toy Story residuals combined!" Apparently I am seldom informed of anything. And possibly a little slow. But seriously, are vampires even popular any more?

I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER. I don't love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I'm also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was. And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly. I can't wish people who are passionate about my little myth ill. I can, however, take this time to announce that I'm making a Batman movie. Because there's a franchise that truly needs updating. So look for The Dark Knight Rises Way Earlier Than That Other One And Also More Cheaply And In Toronto, rebooting into a theater near you.

Leave me to my pain! Sincerely, Joss Whedon.

Commute Gets Worse

Last week, after several drives to and from work that had me in the car for a couple hours a day round trip, I finally asked my boss if I could work from home two days a week instead of one. She didn't have a problem with that, so now I get to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, two of the worse traffic days around here.

So, of course, with things looking good on that front, they had to take a turn for the worse elsewhere on my commute.

On Wednesday, I was taking my normal meandering back-roads trip to work (Route 7 from Sterling to Tyson's is a nightmare), and I got up to the bridge over the toll road on Beulah. And there was a big sign there that said the road was closed. They didn't bother to put up signs before the bridge saying it was out, just at the bridge. So I had to turn around and drive back to Route 7 and make my way to the office that way. Final time: one hour, fifteen minutes.

On the way home, I figured the bridge might be opened again - they didn't look like they were working on it or anything, so I tried to get back to it. But no, it was closed. So I had to get back on the road and find another way over the Toll Road. Finally, I got home after an hour and forty five minutes of driving.

So my round trip that day took me more than three times as long as my round trip to my old office would have. So much for the benefit of working from home two days a week.

I checked online and found out that the bridge was out indefinitely because a truck had hit it on Tuesday evening, and they needed to do tests on it to make sure it was still stable. Of course, they had no idea how long that would take, nor when it would open up again.

Games that Died

These aren't games that have died everywhere. I recognize fully that all four of these games are still played, some with more frequency than others, elsewhere. Heck, some are played with frequency in this area. But these are games that died for me that I have played at one time or another.

I'm not going to include things like Uncharted Seas, which I have played a couple of times but am not playing much since then. The games on this list are some that I have played with some frequency at some point in time. I was thinking about one of them earlier today, and it got me thinking about why some games survive and some don't.



Arcane Legions

The game that I was thinking about that sparked my thinking about this topic was Arcane Legions. At GenCon 2009, this was the game that got my attention and got me pretty excited. It is a fast paced mass army game with some pretty unique mechanics. It wasn't too expensive to get into, though the collectible aspect of it was a turnoff. Fortunately there were not that many models that you needed to get, so it turned out to be affordable. The mechanics were fresh and it was a boatload of fun to play.

So why did it fail? I know it's still a big controversy (I checked their forums today and they're still talking about it), but for our gaming group, we simply could not deal with the archery rules the way they were. Whether archery units are broken in comparison to basic units or not isn't the point. Even when the game was in its infancy, the forums were filled with people harping on the fact that archery was too powerful. The company never addressed this issue, and soon people stopped playing the game, not wanting to play a game where one faction - the Hans who excelled at archery - would win most games where all other things were equal. That the company never addressed these concerns adequately left a sour taste, and soon we were looking for different games to try.

The game continues to flounder. Its first expansion has been put on hold indefinitely as it tries to build its player base. But of course it's hard to build players when there are no new models and toys coming out. To me, this is an example of what could have been a great game being completely mishandled by its company.

Even still, sometimes I look longingly at my models and wouldn't mind getting a game or two in again. Just enough to remind me why I stopped playing in the first place.



Monsterpocalypse

Monsterpocalypse was a game where you'd hit the table with massive monsters, aliens, robots, etc. and fight in a huge city scape. Several of us got into this game, and despite my insistence that I would not buy into it when it first came out, I was quickly convinced that I should and ended up joining the group with my own Martian army.

It was a pretty fun game for a while. But this game suffered from a couple of major issues to me.

First, it was collectible. I had to buy random packs that might come up with things I'd never use, and if I did, I had to hope that my friends got random stuff they'd never use that I would use, and would want to swap with me for the things I got that I didn't want. Annoying. We were able to get around this when we found sites that were selling singles, which was nice, so we didn't have to worry too much about that.

Second, it had collectors versions of all the monsters. This was not a case of "there are a couple of special models you can only get through tournaments", this was a case of "every monster can have a third, different form and you have to do different things to get them." Some you could get by winning tourneys. Some you had to buy a certain amount of product for. But whatever it was, there were a large number of models you simply could not get, and that discouraged me from wanting to play. I'm a completest, and not being able to complete my faction left me unhappy.

Third, and this is the one that really sealed it for me, we found out that every year, the game would cycle out six new factions and "retire" the six old ones. Sure you could keep playing them, but it meant that every year, if I wanted to keep up, I had to drop an entire faction I'd spent time and money on and start all over. For me, it meant it would be a good time to get out of the game, if I was still playing it.

It ended up that I wasn't still playing it at the end of the year. The reason for that is that it lost interest among my group. Their reasons for dropping it had less to do with the way it was being released like mine did, and more with the fact that many times, the game came down to "who got the first chance to throw their opponent through a string of buildings." When one powerful move could win games, it became frustrating.



Warhammer 40k

I know this game isn't dead. All I'm just saying it didn't appeal to me, and figured I should explain why.

Honestly, I don't know so much why this one didn't work for me. It's a decent enough game. It was fun the couple times I played it. I have an army that looks interesting to me. I think I can come up with a couple of the feelings I have when I think about it.

First, it's vastly different from other games I've played. In my experience, I'm much more interested in the skirmish games. 40k is definitely not one of those.

Second, I like when I can look across the table and know exactly what I'm facing. The learning curve for everything I'd be facing in 40k is very, VERY high.

Third, and I know this is really kinda picky, I like knowing who won and lost a game at the end. A number of times I played 40k, by the end of the game, we calculated up our points and ended up in a tie. A tie! I had just spent two hours playing, and ended up with a tie. I don't mind if I lose, and I love to win, but walking away with a tie leaves me feeling like, "Why did I bother?"

Now the odd thing about that, and I admit it makes me a hypocrite, is that I don't mind tying when I play Malifaux. I think it might be because ties are so much more rare in Malifaux and seemed fairly frequent in 40k, but I'm not sure.

In the end, the game was long to set up, long to play, and might not leave me feeling satisfied. I never felt like I really "got it" with the game. In other games, I can pick them up, figure out pretty quickly what I should be worried about, figure out what of my units are designed to do things, etc. but I never got to that point with 40k. That might have to do with the infrequency of playing - I couldn't watch for patterns in how things worked, but whatever the reason, it never really struck me as a game I would enjoy playing much.



Warmachine / Hordes

And finally, the big daddy of them all. Warmachine and Hordes. I'm going to come out and say first that I don't regret any of my time or money in this game. I got a good four years out of playing this game, and loved a lot of it. I met a lot of people through this game, including Dan, and made a lot of friendships. Overall, I call my time with this game a huge success.

So why don't I play it anymore? A lot of it goes back to my reasons for disliking 40k.

They made a new rule set: Mark 2, and already had hundreds of models available. When Mark 2 hit, everything changed. Everything. In order to keep up with the game, I'd have to relearn the entire game.

Not necessarily a bad thing - I could have done it. Mark 2 went a long way to cleaning up some of the problems I had with the game. The rules bloat, etc. But it also made the game size larger. More models were fielded. The game that had started as a skirmish game turned into an army-sized game. I tried a few games of it, but decided it was just too big for me. I know I can play smaller point levels, but it didn't seem like the game was intended for smaller point levels anymore. So I saw Mark 2 as the perfect time to drop the game and look for a new skirmish game to pick up.

Now that I have a new one - Malifaux - I am watching it and noticing that, frankly, it's going to do pretty much the same thing. It's going to get too big with too many models and too much rules bloat, and I'm going to want to drop it. But with luck, I'll get a good four years of fun out of it too, and by the, hopefully there will be a new skirmish game I can get in on the ground floor and ride the beginning of too.

Rising Power in Malifaux: Rising Powers?

I was just listening to one of the podcasts I subscribe to, Gamers Lounge, and there was a little bit of discussion around Malifaux's new book, Rising Powers, specifically regarding the power level of that book in comparison to Malifaux's first book. One of the hosts suggested that the new book's power level, particularly with the new masters, was higher than that of the first book with the exception of a few of the masters (Perdita, Lady Justice and Lilith being the three mentioned). I had a differing opinion, so I figured I'd take some time to talk about what my feelings of Rising Power are.

I took some time trying to formulate the reason I disagree with this point. I'm going to start with the easy part: the minions. I know this isn't specifically what was mentioned in the podcast, but it is part of the whole question as to whether the new book is that much greater than the old. My primary experience is with Neverborn, so I'll be concentrating there mostly, but having talked with another of my friends who plays Ressurectionists, he's of the same opinion.

There are plenty of models in the first book that I believe are on a level with or better than those in the second book. Mature Nephilim are still the Neverborn's king of dealing damage. Terror Tots are still among the best point-for-effectiveness models in the game. Their speed, their triggers, and their defense all make them incredibly good at getting to points and holding them, or coming in to finish off an enemy. Their ability to grow into Younger Nephilim and become models that are worth double their points is solid.

The Doppelganger, the Waldgeists, and the Slurids are all very good models, as are Baby Kade and Candy in their specific roles. Teddy is a hard to hurt heavy-hitter, owning one of the most impressive damage lines in the game (3/5/10) when he gets his teeth on you.

Rising Power likewise has a lot of fantastic choices. Lilu and Lilitu fit easily into a lot of the builds for Neverborn. Coppulus is just frightening. On the lower point level, Alps are a great swarm monster, and Insidious Madness gives us some nice support.

I think where I finally came down to in comparing the two books on the minions level is this: there is very little difference between the top of the class in book one and the top of the class in book two. But the bottom of the class of book two is better than the bottom of the class of book one. What I mean by that is there are a few models in book one I just don't like. Bad Juju. Sorrows. The Hooded Rider has yet to show me he's good. I don't feel like there's anything in Rising Powers that's that bad. As such, I can look through Rising Powers and be be wow-ed by everything in it, but can't do the same for book one. To me, that just shows that they've figured out how to not make crap models anymore.



Moving on to the masters, which is where the crux of the conversation was, I'm still not convinced that they are more powerful than the original models. These models are not more powerful, they're simply working differently than any other master has before. In Neverborn, we had a caster who was fast and attacked in melee (Lilith), a master who attacked willpower (Pandora) and another who makes your enemy's models attack each other (Zoraida). But in all of these, there were other masters in other factions who did similar things. Lady Justice attacked melee. Ressurectionists could create builds that would attack willpower (with terror and willpower-reducing effects).

In Rising Powers, each of the masters is drastically different than other things that have been presented. The soulstone manipulation of Collette is unseen before. The burying/unburying effects of the Dreamer are all new. Hamelin's crew utilizes dying and reviving rats, Kirai uses an entire army of Spirits with lots of movement, healing and summoning, and Hoffman can push his minions differently than we've ever seen before.

But I don't believe they're more powerful. I just believe they're different.

Any time you face a player who is using a master they understand decently well and that you've never seen before, they're going to pull tricks on you that will make you cry foul. I've done it myself. First time I faced Nicodem, he blased a melee I was in with a spell that hurt all my people and healed all his. WTF?! I faced Seamus with his Copycat Killer and saw the massive damage their guns could do. Other people who haven't seen Obey before will face Zoraida and scream broken when their own model smashes their master for half his life on turn one.

But the more people play against these masters, the more people realize how to stop them. If you don't want to be Obeyed, deploy differently. If you don't want a massive gun to the face, kill the Copycat fast even though he's only two points. Stop the Vultures and limit Nicodem's spell casting. All of these lessons come from playing games, and there are lessons for dealing with the new masters too. They just come in time. I'd expect that in several months, these new masters will be right along with the old, once everyone learns their tricks.

Three Games on Tuesday

Got out to Huzzah last night and managed to pull in three games against Dan. He's been having an itch to get back to his old Ressers, and I decided to use some of my less-used masters. I think Dreamer's shelved for the moment, at least until I get more options with him. He's a boatload of fun, but right now there are really only two builds with him since I have only three other Nightmares: Lilu, Lilitu and Teddy. This month I should greatly expand my options, though, as I pick up Alps, Stitched Together, Daydreams and Coppulus.

Getting in three games made each of them a blur, so I'll try to make sure I cover the main points, and may be off on the lists slightly. I think I'm close, though.




The first game came up as Pandora vs. Seamus.
Pandora, Primordial Magic, Lilu, Lilitu, Doppelganger, Baby Kade (4 stones)
Seamus, Punk Zombie x2, Belle x2, Copycat Killer, Hanged (4 stones)
Pandora had Deliver the Message and took Bodyguard and Kidnap (Copycat and both Punk Zombies)
Seamus had Claim Jump and took Bodyguard and Army of the Dead

I started out slowly advancing, getting my Doppelganger near his Claim Jump point under some cover to prep for where I thought the main fighting would take place, and brought Baby Kade close by to take out the first model that showed its face. Meanwhile, my twins headed up with Pandora. He ran Seamus out front throwing up the -2 WP ability and putting the rest of his army a little behind him for support.

On turn two, he went headlong after Pandora. Popping his -2 WP again (which really hurts!), he got a shot off on Pandora but I managed to save myself there. Then Lilitu went and started Luring Seamus, trying to get him closer. He used three of his stones to stop a couple of them, but some well-timed flips and cheats of Masks managed to get him very close by, and losing the WP duels gave him several points of damage (the Doppelganger was doubling the damage dealt). Lilu swung by and dropped Seamus to one life left. I activated Pandora and flipped to Incite one of his Punk Zombies to get the movement to get next to Seamus (I couldn't do it to Seamus because if he failed his WP flip, he'd die and I couldn't deliver the message then). She delivered him a message, then tried to Incite him to kill him off. At that point, Dan remembered that he had Terrify which, even with a stone, I couldn't pass. We tried to unravel the turn all the way back to when she was first in his terrifying range, but it became too complicated with all the flips and we just said we'd call the Terrify from there. So Seamus survived. The Punk Zombies moved up and the Hanged tried to get a shot off on Lilu, but failed.

I won initiative on turn three and used Lilitu to Lure Seamus, killing him with the WP flip, then moved around for better positioning. Both Lilu and Baby Kade went after the two Punk Zombies, but failed to kill either one. Pandora rallied and could not move. Fortunately, Pandora did not need to and managed to kill both Punks. I got Kidnap.

At that point, I had 6 points locked up and because I killed Seamus before turn 4, Dan had lost one point there and had a maximum of 5 points available to him in the game, so we called it there.



The second game I pulled out my least-used master: Marcus.
Marcus, Jackalope, Slurid x3, Waldgeist, Cerebus Tiger (4 stones)
Seamus, Copycat Killer, Punk Zombie x2, Belle x2, Hanged (4 stones)
Marcus got A Line in the Sand and took Power Ritual and Sabotage
Seamus got Supply Wagon and took Bodyguard and Army of the Dead

This one wasn't really that close. Neither of us had objectives that required us to fight, and I had a total of ten spots on the board my models had to reach and interact with, so I wasn't planning on getting close to him. The fact my army was all very fast helped there. I made almost no attacks all game, instead just rushing around the board completing my objectives.

The Slurids were able to complete two of the corners for Power Ritual on turns one and two, and also grabbed the Sabotage objective on turn two. My Cerberus Tiger was able to grab one of the corners on turn one and the last corner on turn three, so by the time I was at the top of turn three, I had already scored 5 victory points. Last thing I did, then, was have Marcus head over to the wagon and whack it three times while high on damage, dropped three moderate cards (two cheated), and destroyed his wagon. By turn three, he could not win anymore. I had 5 points and he could get a max of 4 if he got Bodyguard and Army of the Dead. I think the entire game I attacked one of his models once, and that was just to do something with my Waldgeist.

I'm going to take a brief moment to talk about those two schemes: Sabotage and Power Ritual. They are, without a doubt, far too easy to achieve. The fact that Archanists get the two easiest faction-specific schemes, and that one of them can be up to 3 points, is a huge boon for them. I had no trouble scraping together five points in the first three turns, and that put the game easily out of reach of Dan before any interacting had happened.

Now I like the fact there are scenarios and schemes that don't involve combat with the other person, because it gives a nice mix to what's happening out there, but giving the Archanists two relatively simple Schemes that can garner them 5 points means that your opponent, in order to stay on pace with just those schemes, has to get their full scenario and a scheme, or half their scenario and both schemes. And if you get your full scenario too, there's virtually no way you can't win.



Okay, on to game three. Zoraida came out against Leviticus.
Zoraida, Voodoo Doll, Mature Nephilim, Lilu, Lilitu, Convict Gunslinger (5 stones)
Leviticus, Rusty Alice, Belle x2, Killjoy (3 stones)
Zoraida got Deliver Message again, and I took Bodyguard and figured I'd try Seeds of Betrayal (I have to get one of his models to kill his master)
Leviticus got Contain Power and took Grudge (on Lilu, it turned out) and Kill Protegee (on my Mature Nephilim)

I started moving up as he did the same. We had a Lure war on my Convict Gunslinger (he must have thought he was hot stuff, three girls vying for his affections) as he tried to bring him into range of his attacks and I tried to keep him out of range, and I tossed my Voodoo Doll on Rusty Alice, figuring she had the best chance to kill Leviticus.

On turn two, I got my chance to try. Rusty Alice charged Leviticus and hit, and flipped Severe damage which would have killed him, but he used one of his stones to prevent one of it, keeping him alive. Damn! And to rub salt in the wound, Leviticus went ahead and died summoning Killjoy in front of my Mature Nephilim. I tried to get my Lilu in range of Killjoy but failed, and Killjoy hit my Mature for 4 damage. Next round, I won initiative and dropped Killjoy, but was dropped to two life in its dying attack. Leviticus came up and turned my Mature into a Steampunk Abomination (that's embarrassing). I saw my opening and went for it - Rusty Alice charged and killed Leviticus. I started jumping around - Seeds of Betrayal! Seeds of Betrayal! Even Dan thought that was awesome and we laughed about that objective for a little while before continuing.

He was able to come back and kill off my Lilu, and later my Lilitu but I was able to get Zoraida onto his side of the board and safe. While I was never able to give him his message (which was a love letter, evidently, and Leviticus kept killing himself rather than read it - doesn't bode well for future romance between the two), I was able to defeat Contain Power, and we ended up tying at 4-4.

Time is not Money

I had a conversation with a couple of my friends not too long ago about gaming and where it was in my life. I enjoy heading out to play games, be they board games on a Friday night, weekly roleplaying games, or heading out for a miniatures game with my buddies. As I'm certain nearly every aging gamer discovers, there comes a time where your limiting factor for the games you play ceases to be your financial situation and becomes your time.

I remember when I was in high school - we had nothing but time. Other than going to school and working on projects (which, frankly, never took all that long), we didn't have much on our plates. Sports would take their share of time, but most of our time was our own. We could do with it what we wanted. We could go play games whenever we wanted, and once we learned to drive, the major obstacle there was removed. I remember weekend gaming sessions that would start at noon on a Saturday and roll straight into the evening, then early hours of the morning before we all passed out exhausted.

But we did not have that much income then. Oh sure, we didn't have to worry about bills to pay or things like that, but our level of income was pretty low. I remember having to consciously consider whether I was going to buy a new bunch of cards for Magic or a roleplaying book I wanted to check out. I had all the time in the world, but not enough money to do what I wanted.

College was similar - now without a job I had even less money than high school, yet being on campus with gamers gave me that much more time to play games. We ended up doing things like pooling all our magic cards together and making "booster packs" of our collections, doing drafts, then mixing them all up and doing it again. Most of our time was spent playing roleplaying games because they were far cheaper per hour of entertainment than miniatures.

Now, though, I'm on the opposite spectrum. I have the income to purchase games I want, but I still find myself not buying everything that I want. Not because I cannot afford it (though I am a bit more careful with my spending now), but rather because I look at games and say, "Will I actually play this enough to make it worth it?"

Two games come up immediately as examples of this: Uncharted Seas and Infinity. Both of these are games that have had popularity in our group recently, but I have refused to purchase anything for either game simply because I know I have a limited amount of time to game and I will not get my money's worth from either one. The problem is, with rare exceptions, our group is very fluid in what we enjoy. Uncharted Seas was supposed to be "the" game for a while with several people trying to convince me to play it, but now, less than one month after I played my first game of it (with a free box I won at Warstore Weekend, so I don't feel bad about it), it has already been shoved aside for the next great new game: Infinity.

One of the touted benefits of Infinity is its affordability - you do not need to purchase much to have a full list ready to go with the game. But like I said, it's not the money that's the issue - it's the time. There are several games I would rather play when I go out with my friends to grab a game. Malifaux (a game I nearly passed up because I was not convinced of its longevity, actually) is my game of choice and has been for quite some time. Until I become disillusioned with the game as I was eventually with Warmachine and Hordes (and I am certain I will eventually become disillusioned with Malifaux too, be it a year from now or five), I cannot see myself trying to spend the little time I have to game on something else.

Malifaux Matches: Dreamer and Leviticus

Over the weekend, Dan and I decided to get a couple games of Malifaux in before Sunday football. We haven't faced each other since the Warstore Weekend and since then, he's picked up a new crew (Leviticus) and I've started using the Dreamer a little more (since I have more options now than just the Teddies - now I have the twins too... I haven't gotten the Stitched Togethers or Coppulus since I didn't buy the boxed set).

I have never faced Leviticus and always wanted to see what he's like. He hasn't run against the twins, Lilu and Lilitu, before and wanted to see the Dreamer with a few new tricks.

Our first game was 30 stones.

I took the Dreamer with two Lilus and two Lilitus (6 stones left).
He took Leviticus with two dogs, a Belle, Killjoy, Rusty Alice... I think that's it. He might have had something else, but he ended with three stones.

Dan had won a pretty slick piece of terrain at his last tournament so we stuck that in the middle of the board and gave it a special rule - if you killed someone that was within it, you got a Soulstone. It was also terrifying, but neither of our crews cared about that too much.

We flipped for strategies and I got Claim Jump, putting a marker in the middle of the board I had to control, and he got Destroy the Evidence, having to remove three markers from the board - two in the middle and one on my side. I took Bodyguard and Kidnap as my two schemes (secretly picking the two dogs and Rusty Alice as my targets) and he took Breakthrough and the Leviticus-specific one that requires Levi to die four times during the game. Since he's a necromancer, he can keep coming back if he dies and the right steps are taken, so it's a pretty funny scheme.

So the game started with me moving the Dreamer up to the gravestone marker I had to stick near for my claim jump. He started moving people slowly forward, moving one of his Waifes into a building and a dog out in front for me to possibly go after. Leviticus did not kill himself on the first turn - he has to discard his hand when he does, so I guess Dan had a pretty solid hand.

On turn two, I won initiative and had the Dreamer pop out all four of the siblings, but without a clear target, he remained as a kid. Leviticus went and blasted the crap out of one of the boys, killing him before the twins could activate and leaving me with a pretty unfortunate situation. I went and started my girls. The first one tried - and failed - two Lure Leviticus three times, trying to pull him closer to the remaining boy. It did run him lower on stones, though, which helped. The boy went, charged Leviticus, and killed him straight away with two claw attacks. My last girl activated then and Lured the Waife out of the house. It was tough - the Waife had 9 WP to resist by 8 CA, but I managed to get it to work and triggered the free casts of the spell enough times that I got her out of the house, in range of the girl, and killed. Phew - that meant Leviticus was not coming back anytime soon. One of the dogs charged forward at one of my girls, turned into Killjoy, and proceded to flatten her with reckless abandon, then wounded the second girl. It was insane how much damage he could do!

Turn three went and I was stuck with a difficult spot. If I did not activate my boy, he would be killed. If I didn't figure out a way to deal with jerkface (Killjoy), I would lose my girl and possibly the Dreamer. I went with the Dreamer first, then, and Dan told me that Killjoy had Slow to Die and could heal back to full if he killed someone. Which, of course, meant if I killed Killjoy, he could just kill my girl and be fully healed again. I kept with the Dreamer, buried my girl so she was no longer around, turned into Lord Chompy Bits (who dwarfs Killjoy - it's quite funny) and triggered several great attacks leaving Killjoy... well... dead. At the end, he turned back into the Dreamer. Dan went and killed the boy and managed to kill off the Dreamer too, spilling out both the girl and Lord Chompy Bits on the board.

On turn four, my girl was slowly dying. We looked over the board of chaos - I had Lord Chompy Bits and a girl and he had Rusty Alice and a Belle. I ran both my models over to the objective marker I had, Lord Chompy Bits was too big to hide. He got shot down by Alice as he started moving his models towards his objectives and my deployment zone.

Turns five and six were pretty low key - me trying to keep my girl alive and hidden while he ran for the other edge to try to get some points. We did not flip an additional round, so I was able to get Claim Jump and 1 point of Kidnap while he did not receive any points, giving me a 5-0 victory. Phew! That was a brutal game - far closer than the points looked. If he had gotten one more turn, he could have turned the game into a 2-1 victory for him, claiming both Breakthrough and blocking me from getting Claim Jump.



We had about 45 minutes until football started, so we decided to do a quick 25 point game this time.

I took the Dreamer, one set of twins and a Teddy (5 stones).
He took Leviticus, Rusty Alice, a Belle, and three Steampunk Abominations.

My scenario turned out to be Contain Power - trying to keep his master on his side of the board. He got Treasure Hunt. For my schemes, I took Kidnap (selecting his three Steampunk Abominations) and Bodyguard and he took Holdout and Leviticus' special die-four-times scheme again.

Once again, I deployed just the Dreamer. I went first and flew out to the middle of the board behind some cover. He just moved up getting ready for some attacks and bringing his three Steampunks up one side. Knowing that they were my Kidnap victims, I sent the Dreamer after them on the next turn, spilling out my three Nightmares, becoming Lord Chompy Bits and killing one, then turning back into the Dreamer. He went next and Leviticus blasted my girl, bringing her down to three life, then turning her into a Steampunk Abomination. Teddy and my boy finished off the Steampunk Abominations and the turn capped.

On turn three, Leviticus went and blasted at my boy, dropping it to nearly dead (would die at the end of the turn) and leaving Leviticus almost dead. I charged Levi with the boy and managed to kill him, and the Dreamer launched himself over a building, turned into Lord Chompy Bits, and killed the hidden Waife. I forgot to trigger All Done (I was holding the card in my hand to do it) and ended up leaving Lord Chompy Bits on the table. My Teddy ran for cover while I had to ditch a bunch of stones to keep Lord Chompy Bits alive from Alice's shooting.

On turn four, Teddy ran straight to Alice to block her from shooting at Lord Chompy Bits and she managed to Red Joker a kill on Teddy! Ouch! But the nightmare bought enough time for Lord Chompy Bits to run up the field near her. It came down to the next initiative...

I flipped a 1 and groaned. Dan flipped a 1. Phew. Reflip. Dan flipped a 9. I cringed... then flipped an 11!

Lord Chompy Bits charged in on Rusty Alice and with a good hand of Masks, triggered Flay enough to kill her outright. The Belle had no shot against the monster, and we called it there. Two very close games, though. Leviticus frightens me.

Walking Dead

I missed the premier episode of this series on Halloween because I was running my Halloween roleplaying game instead, but last week Laura and I managed to catch the second episode. I went back onto Hulu and saw the first episode after that, and figured I'd give my opinion of the show.

I really like it.

I'll add a disclaimer here that I am a huge fan of the comic and of the horror/survival genre, so this show was almost tailor made for me, but I think they could have really screwed it up, and I'm glad to see they did not.

The show, rightly so, focuses on the characters more than the zombies and horror. Watching the show I feel like they're going to be paying far more attention to how the people react to their entire world changing and the daily goal being just survive to the next day. The zombies offer a constant threat, but my impression is that they won't be there all the time. Sometimes the survivors will make their way to someplace safe for a little while, and then they'll be dealing with each other. From watching the show, this whole concept could do just as well and moving the setting into space (like the Cylons chasing the humans in BSG's first episode) or by removing the zombies entirely (making more of a post-apocalyptic setting). The focus is on the characters and the zombies provide a vehicle to tell the story of these people. The biggest threat to survival is not the zombies themselves, but the people and how they'll react to them.

I have to say, I was happy watching the second episode of the show. While I know the show is based on the comic, nearly the entire second episode was original, not at all drawn from the comic that inspired it. It was an early warning to those fans of the comic that this is going to be different. Different things might happen - different people might show up. Don't expect that just because the comic did a particular thing that the show will too.

As a warning, I did try to show my mother the first episode, and while she likes post-apocalyptic shows and character-driven shows, she could not get through the episode. Not for lack of quality of the show, but because the suspense of the zombie threat was too much. If you're not a fan of horror or suspense, this might not be the show for you. I'd recommend giving it a try with the lights on in the afternoon at some point - it's worth checking out.

Two Games on Tuesday

I got to Huzzah at about 5:30 and already there were two games going - Bill was playing the really tall guy that's not Jay, and John was playing Tim. On Bill's board, it was Lady J (Bill) v. Marcus (really tall guy) and on the other board it was Marcus (John) v. Vikki (Tim). I watched the really tall guy playing a bit and saw a few new tricks to use with Marcus. I understand now how the Mole Men should be used. They dig in deep and then run around close to Marcus. They end up with an Armor of 6 or so, and Marcus can shunt any damage he takes to them (damage, not wounds, so the armor still reduces them). Anytime he's hit for 7 or less damage, the Mole takes 1. Not bad. The downfall there is that it really anchors Marcus. The game ended up being a tie as Marcus took down Lady J and then went to time with only him on the board for Really Tall Guy and a couple of Deathseekers or something on the board for Bill.

I was surprised by the number of Marcus players - though this is a pretty small sample size. Maybe he's one of the new masters to take. Seeing how he was run gave me some new ideas to try with him. Too bad Dreamer has really taken my focus right now.

It was getting really late and I was getting disappointed because it seemed like I wasn't going to get a game in. Chris was there, but he didn't want to play Malifaux, instead either running Infinity for Ryan (one game), or sitting around chatting (the rest of the time). Ryan wasn't in the mood for playing Malifaux after the tourney, plus he had to run the store, so no problem there. Another couple guys came in, but they ended up playing Uncharted Seas.

Finally, John and I got a chance to play at around 7:30.

30 Stones.
Shared Contain Power
Dreamer, 2x Lilu, 2x Lilitu, 6 stones (Bodyguard, Holdout)
Vikkis, 2x Ronin, Hans, Convict Gunslinger, Student of Conflict, 4 stones (Assassinate, Holdout)



I started with the Dreamer on the table and nothing else. He split his forces into two, one with both ronin, the Convict and the sword Vikki (closer to the middle of the table) and one with gun Vikki, Student, and Hans (near one of the edges). On turn one, we just had a lot of maneuvering - me moving behind a building near the back center of the table and him moving his two squads up but keeping cover. His sword Vikki took a lead in the one group and the other group stuck close together.

Turn two, I got the initiative. I had forgotten how Dreamer works a little and discarded my 5 of Masks (which would trigger my ability to toss out all my nightmares) and did not draw any masks in my hand. Oops. I moved the Dreamer forward and tried to cast the spell, flipping a 13 of Masks. Phew. All my Nephilim poured out near the Sword Vikki. I switched into LCB and proceeded to pound on her. First attack he stoned to miss. Second attack he stoned but I still hit him, triggering Onslaught and doing 2 damage. Third attack I hit and did another four damage, dropping him to one. That attack triggered All Done and the Dreamer was back on the table surrounded by Nightmares so he couldn't be targeted.

John looked at his nearly dead and defenseless Vikki and decided to activate the other Vikki and pull her out of harms way, trying to reconsolidate for a return attack later. I activated one of the women, companioned a man, and lured one of the ronin into one of my guys. The woman did a little damage to her, and then the guy went, companioning the second woman. He knocked the ronin down to 1 life. The girl went, companioned the last guy, finished off the ronin and lured the second one into my lines. The guy went and knocked her down to 3 life left with 2 poison on her. He went, seppukued his last Ronin to at least get stones out of it, brought the Convict around to shoot one of the chics. I don't think it hit, but even if it had, she could heal two back at the end of the turn. He brought his other Vikki a little closer to get ready for the next fight.

Turn three, I got initiative. I activated one of the girls, companioned a guy, and lured Vikki into my lines twice, then hit her for one. The guy went and companioned a girl, and smacked Vikki around, knocking her down to 1 life left. At that point, with another guy and girl going, and planning on killing the first Vikki and luring the second one into my lines to kill too, John asked if he could call it. Pretty brutal - two ronin and close to two Vikki's dead before turn 3 ended. That's hurting I can get behind. I never realized how much fun having Lure in your army is - those Belles have been given new life in my eyes!


Game Two - we were running short on time, so we just played 25 stones. We kept the same missions and switched up our secondary objectives.
25 Stones.
Shared Contain Power
Zoraida, Lilu, Lilitu, Hooded Rider, 8 stones (Bodyguard, Hold Out)
Vikkis, 2x Ronin, Convict Gunslinger, Student of Conflict, 7 stones (Grudge, Whatever the one is that lets you kill the highest point model (unless that's grudge, at which point it's whatever the one that lets you kill a model of your choice))



He deployed in such a way Zoraida couldn't see anything other than Vikki, and with not being able to target masters with the Voodoo Doll, it meant I didn't have much of an option. Turn one was all maneuvering. He pulled up tight, but kept himself out of sight behind buildings and rocks. I moved out into the open where I could see him, but kept my Hooded Rider in Night stance so he couldn't be targeted by ranged attacks and stuck my other models, who are shorter, behind him. Turns two and three were more of the same - him trying to keep out of sight and me trying to draw line to him. Around turn three, I decided that things were going in my favor. To get the scenario, he had to kill my master and Voodoo Doll (who wasn't out yet). To win his schemes, he had to come after my minions. I just had to stay alive and keep him out of my deployment zone, and he had a good distance to run to get to my deployment zone with only two turns left.

Finally on turn four, he moved out the Convict and took a few shots on Zoraida. He missed, and I popped a Voodoo Doll out on him, having him turn and blast one of the Vikkis. With the threat of the Voodoo Doll being popped gone, his entire crew rushed out to me, and after my Voodoo Doll also got the Convict to shoot Vikki, Vikki moved in on Zoraida and did 6 damage to her (I prevented 2 of it).

On turn 5, I popped the Red Joker for initiative when he popped the Black Joker. I cursed, then realized that was actually a good thing. I started with Zoraida who turned into a raven. She then flew away from the Vikki, using the Red Joker as her flip for defense and got away. She booked it to the other side of the board, out of range. The Voodoo Doll was companioned and re-linked to a Ronin, just to spread some Poison love if I got the chance. Vikki went and cut my Voodoo Doll in two, then moved in and killed the girl. The guy and the Hooded Rider killed her in response, but at that point the guy had only 3 life left and was going to die at the end of the turn. The process of that turn dropped him low in stones, so he had to seppuku one of his Ronin to get enough to bring back the second Vikki.

On turn 6, the Hooded Rider booked it away in Night Stance again and John made a new Vikki while running his Convict as close to my deployment zone as he could. I popped a new Voodoo Doll on the only minion I could see - my Hooded Rider - to prevent him from getting the point for me having no Totems on the board at the end. We flipped for the end of the game and the game ended. We measured and the Convict was an inch and a quarter out of my deployment zone. I got Hold Out and Bodyguard, and he got Grudge. I won, 4-2. Close game, most of it involving maneuvering and the like.

Back Into Painting

I don't think I've done any painting since my wedding, so a couple months ago. Partially it's been a matter of not feeling like it, but mostly it's been because I don't have a whole lot left to paint. Earlier this week I got a few new models, and last night I spent the evening watching Deep Space 9 and painting. I was going to watch V For Vendetta (Remember, Remember the Fifth of November) since I wouldn't be able to watch it tonight, but I didn't really feel like a movie when I got home.

Anywho, that's a longer story than it needed to be. Among the models I recently acquired were two sets of the Neverborn siblings. I've painted up two of the girls and one of the guys, and the second guy is about halfway done. I wanted to paint them up in alternating schemes - I liked the light blue and the red that the official models had, but with two sets of twins, I had to switch it up a little. So one of each twin has blue skin with red clothes, and the other has red skin with blue clothes. Makes a nice synergy like that. Here they are!

Dindrenzi Reinforcements

There was a while where I was playing Firestorm Armada every week or so, sometimes multiple times, getting in game after game with my Dindrenzi and generally having a blast. Sometime down the road, other things got in the way. Not only Malifaux, the miniatures game that ended up stealing away my number one game slot from Firestorm, but also the whole wedding thing, plus the honeymoon, and other stuff like that.

Recently, though, I've gotten back into Firestorm with the advent of a couple new ships to diversify my fleet. I used to run with the basics - battleships, cruisers and frigates, with occasional escorts thrown in. My carrier never made the field, mostly because at speed 5", it never got anywhere and since it was large, it turned far too slowly. So the games got pretty repetitive.

Not anymore. Two new ships streaked out into my lineup and I'm ready to rumble once more.



First, Heavy Cruisers. What isn't good about these guys? At 20 points more a pop, they're a bit pricey. Two of them weigh in at just under a battleship's cost, and three of them are a good chunk more. But they're quite worth it. Where in normal cruisers, the only powerful gun was the front fixed gun. The side guns weren't all that fantastic. And even though they sported a nice 4/8 damage rating, they'd still drop pretty quick to concentrated fire. Not so much anymore. Their gun racks max out the same as their fore fixed, meaning with proper maneuvering, the Dindrenzi could finally threaten two ships at once. Their damage rating bumped up to a 5/8, and they gained two more hull points meaning they're not going to fall too easily. Frigates have a much harder time reaching that lucky shot that does a damage to them, and they'll stick on the table for a while, waiting for that heal card. Plus, link their side guns (which are an arc, not fixed like their fore guns) and you're launching a nice 16 dice. Very pretty.



Not to be outdone, soon the Gladius Class Gunship hit the tables. Again, a squad of only three, but these guys don't really need more than that (don't get me wrong - I'd take more than that, but they don't need it). Their damage is further godly at 5/9. They lose their mines, and take a hit on crew and assault, but they make up for it by pretending they're Sorylian ships. No more picking one of the two flanks to fire on - these ships have guns aimed both port and starboard, as well as their standard heavy railgun. They're going to launch a nice 10 dice to each side, linking to a hefty 20 dice. I've seen these guys take out a handful of ships in a couple turns, and they're ready to take a pounding themselves. You pay for these things - 95 points a pop - but they're worth it. Being medium ships, they can maneuver better than a battleship and hit just as hard (or harder).

Overall, my fleet has finally found a reason to drop its second battleship and start fielding something that can maneuver a little. I shudder to think how the other fleets are going to compare before they receive their own gunships.

The Twins

Picked up two sets of the twins a couple days ago. Put them together yesterday. Might start painting them tonight. Their rules look fantastic - can't wait to get them on the table.

Spartan Game Night

A couple days ago I hit Huzzah to play a couple games against Dan. They had a bunch of stuff I had special ordered in (thanks Chris and Ryan!) so I got to increase both of my miniature loves: three Gunships for Dindrenzi and two sets of the siblings and the Hooded Rider for Neverborn. I glued the Gunships together in preparation for facing down Dan.

Our first game was Uncharted Seas, my Imperial Navy against his Railguard. Once again, the wind started against me and I couldn't really maneuver that much. Our ships shot at each other a bunch with me getting an early advantage until he evened the playing field. Soon he was down to a badly damaged battleship and a couple of damaged cruisers against my barely damaged battleship. We sailed around an island for a couple turns as I tried to fight the wind and get an angle where I could hit him with my broadside but... well, frankly it got a bit boring and rather than play it out, we stopped the game there.

Besides, we both had three new Gunships ready to field in Firestorm.

So we hit the table with 1000 points each, each of us trying to destroy a target on the far side of a moon opposite us. That was really less important. More important was just seeing how many antics we could get in with our ships. He took a strong lead, blasting through five or so of my frigates as I downed only one of his cruisers. Then my Gunships went. Ohmigod. Blasted 10 dice into three different frigates on one side of me, and linked fore guns into one of Dan's Gunships, nearly killing it from full. Next turn, I won initiative (yay Dindrenzi tactics!) and my Gunships went again. Three frigates fell to their barrage, and Dan's Gunship was finally trashed. Good times! His responded in kind, and destroyed one of my Gunships, and the battle kept swinging back and forth. My Heavy Cruisers were putting a pounding in as well, and with my Battleship being the nice center of that attack, I was able to control the middle of the board while Dan took the flanks. A few well-timed boarding assaults, one by him that eliminated one of my Heavy Cruisers, and two by me that eliminated his Battleship, turned the tide. In the end, he had three cruisers left (one damaged, and split into two squads) and I had one Battleship (damaged slightly) with an Escort and a Heavy Cruiser left. We called it there since we were both just going to concentrate on getting our objectives at that point and it would take a while for our fleets to re-engage. I think I would have the advantage if I was able to destroy one of the cruisers from his squad of two - at that point he'd have trouble hurting my battleship, but it would take a while for that to happen.

Overall, good times! Dan's Heavy Cruisers are on their way. We'll have another match up then.

Dan and I agreed that Uncharted Seas is clearly the inferior game of the two. Granted we have more options in FSA, but the gameplay and the style just seems more... fun. We'll be sticking with that one.

Grimm: The Halloween Game

Sunday night was Halloween. Every Halloween one of us runs a one-shot roleplaying game with a little bit of a horror theme to it. We started this tradition a few years back when I ran a zombie-pocolypse game where everyone played themselves as a Call of Cthulhu character, found out about the rise of zombies when I, the humble GM, turned into a zombie at a dinner party with them and they all had to escape Northern Virginia. The second year, Brian ran a game where we were all captured on a college/private school campus as stereotypical students and subjected to a twisted game of hide and seek by a vicious murderer. He had us play outside in the dark and had set up a bunch of special effects and sound effects that he’d trigger at opportune times. The third year, Dan ran us through a session where we all woke up, strangers to each other, and found ourselves in a big labyrinth run by an evil vampire who wanted to see us all killed off in interesting fashion.

This year, the game cycled back to me to run. I opted for running a one-shot of a game I’ve always wanted to try: Grimm. The seven characters were each third graders who would be transported into an evil twisted fairy tale world. I created the characters for them to speed things up and we launched off.

First, the characters. The players decided to assign them to each other based only on the names of each one.

First, there was Buster Rock who was assigned to Eric. Buster was the school bully. He constantly stole money from people, picked on them, and actually thought people liked him. But they didn’t. For the most part. He had some cherry bombs on him, a candy bar, and a bunch of loose change from his fees.

Second was August Geode. Jay was given this one, and he turned out to be the mild mannered nerd. August was the oldest kid in the class having just celebrated his birthday, but was afraid that Buster would steal anything he had from him, so generally kept it hidden. He liked chemistry a lot, enjoying his new chemistry set and book he got for his birthday. He also liked conducting experiments.

Third was Chrystal Summers, who was given to Tanya. She was the popular girl in the group, and everyone loved her. The Summers family owned all the oil fields in the region, and were well known for essentially building this town from nothing (back in the day, anyway). She’s rich, and deservedly so. She has also starred in her own television commercial. She actually didn’t have much of a problem with Buster, mostly because she could tell him what to do and he’d do it. She figured he had a crush on her. Of course, from Buster’s point of view, he liked the attention she gave him (when she was ordering him around) so he figured she had a crush on him. Turned out pretty funny when the two of them kept trying to pretend they liked each other when in reality they only thought the other one liked them.

Fourth up was Chase Jackson, the jock, and this one went to Dan. Chase (a girl) had a single mother who worked two jobs. It was Chase’s mother’s dream that Chase would be the first in her family to go to college. To afford that, she encouraged Chase to participate in every sport she could, in hopes of eventually landing a scholarship. Chase was really good at sports, liking softball the most. She was a team player most times but did accept that she was better than everyone else. She liked Buster too, mostly because he would actually put up a challenge physically. The two of them liked the competition. Chrystal was okay, she guessed, especially since her slumber parties always had the best snacks.

Fifth came Joe Smith, who Brian took. Joe was the normal kid. Joe was never the best at anything, but he wasn’t bad either. He wasn’t the best at sports, that was Chase, but he gave it a good try on the court. He liked playing his X-Box, participated in Boy Scouts, and had a stable family and a twin sister. He wasn’t overly fond of Buster, but tended to fall under Buster’s notice when others were around. August was okay, but he didn’t really want to associate with him in case that nerdness rubbed off. Chrystal was pretty cute, but above him. Chase and he got along because they often played on the same teams.

Sixth was Morgana Dusk and Ellen grabbed her. Morgana was an outcast, a troubled student who had just transferred to the school. She dressed in all black, never smiled, and thought life sucked. People tended to ignore her, or avoid her because she was just off-putting. Buster had tried to beat her up once but she twisted his arm and nearly broke it, so he never bothered her again. Joe had actually gone out of his way to say “hello” to her when she transferred in, which was more than anyone else had done, and she developed an instant crush on him. Of course, he didn’t realize it and figured he was just doing the polite thing that his parents had taught him, and never really talked to her much again. To Morgana, though, Joe was her best friend at the school.

Last was Astrid Heavens, and this one went to Laura. Astrid was a dreamer, living her life in fantasy worlds and reading books, writing, or drawing. She hated Buster with a passion because he had stolen her diary once and read it aloud. Buster was hoping there was something about him in it, since he had a crush on the weird, eccentric girl, but was disappointed to find he was not featured at all. Astrid since got a new diary, this one with a lock on it. She talked to August a lot, usually nerd-talk, and the nerd had also developed a crush on her. Joe was her twin brother, so she hated/loved him like any sibling does.




So everyone got their background sheet and read it over, laughing and trying to figure out who hated who and who liked who and who to not talk to under pain of social-ostracation. Then we jumped into the game.

It went fairly well. The plot was straight forward – the group was on a field trip to see an arboretum, blacked out, and came to in a new place. Slowly the kids realized they were somewhere else when they found a huge shoe that was run down. They were hustled in to the shoe by Old Mother Hubbard. Old Mother Hubbard explained that children were all outlaws in this land, and that the seven dwarves would come and take them away. On cue, three of the seven dwarves came over the hill with their nightmare steeds. They banged on Old Mother Hubbard’s door while the kids hid away. The dwarves spotted them when they came in, captured Old Mother Hubbard, and tried to catch the kids. They children quickly realized they were outmatched and fled, learning that working together was far better than working alone.

The kids fled to a forest where the dwarves refused to head in. They were cold and miserable, and saw many green eyes out in the black distance as they were settling in for the night. Astrid drew a picture of a ghostly knight who would watch over them and imagined it into being, and soon the knight, dubbed Sir Lancelot, was there. Of course, the knight was imagined by Astrid so knew only things she would know, and tended to take his task of defending the kids against the spiders very seriously, even threatening to cut off the legs of any children who tried to go see the spiders. Better a legless man than a dead one, he supposed.

By morning, Lancelot disappeared, having completed his task of protecting them from the spiders. They traveled deeper into the woods and the forest succeeded in separating them one at a time, and keeping them hidden from each other. A pale pre-teen girl, Snow White, as it turned out, found them and reunited them. They talked to her, found out that the stories they knew from home were just a little different. The evil Step Mother did exist, but she had captured the Seven Dwarves’ souls, having casted a spell that showed the Seven Dwarves would be her downfall. Snow White (who did not remember her name at all) told the story of how she had been taken to the forest by a woodcutter who had been charged with killing her, but as she was so beautiful as a babe, the woodcutter left her in the woods and could not swing the axe. He instead took the entrails of an animal back to prove Snow White was dead. Snow White said the dwarves could always sense children, except in this forest, and that the children were taken by the evil Queen and distilled into innocence and used to fuel her spells. All the children in this realm were gone, and the Queen had taken to capturing children from other realms and bringing them here for her spells. There was a big mirror that the Queen used for her spells, and maybe it could be used to get them home.




The kids headed to the castle to try to stop the Queen and get home. The dwarves found the kids, chased them to the castle, and they got in before the dwarves could. They climbed the tower, leaving Chrystal behind to distract the dwarves with her tales and stories. The kids reached the top of the tower and found the evil Queen there. She lured them in and began enthralling Joe before the others jumped up and tried to break the mirror. Astrid asked how to free the dwarven souls, which they saw in the mirror, and how to get home. To free the dwarves, they had to break the mirror. To go home, they needed the mirror intact. They broke the mirror instead, freeing the dwarves and stranding themselves here. Except for Chrystal, who fled the castle with the dwarves, the other six were all captured by the evil Queen and imprisoned, ending the game.

Overall, great fun. I had a blast running again – it’s been a little while – and I’ve gotten great feedback from other players. It was a lot of work to put together that one session, though. I think I’ve spent more time on that simple session than I did on any three other sessions from most of my other campaigns. Building easy-to-play characters with involved back-stories and a fast one-shot that would finish in about 3 hours while still maintaining three decent acts was a bit of work. I might change my mind down the road, but right now I’ll gladly pass on trying another one-shot next Halloween. Fortunately, Brian and then Dan have first crack at the next one since it’s been longer since they ran one.