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Monday, August 31, 2009

It's in the Cards

I'm in a weird 'cards' phase at the moment. I've been on a miniature painting hiatus so I've had time to wander around the net and check out a number of games that's been mentioned at the recent Gencon and various gaming sites. The following games are card games that piqued my interest recently but aren't necessarily in the same category or genre that you'd assume card games would be in.

It first started with me jumping back into an old college favorite and the grandaddy of all collectible games: Magic: the Gathering card game. I finally picked up the set of intro packs in the new 2010 core set for light, quick, casual multiplayer games. I haven't played this game since '95 so it's nice to see that the game hasn't changed much. This was the first game that quickly taught me the harsh lessons of a collectible game. Just after a year and a half, 2 expansions later, and one college drop-out friend less, I was done buying.

Funny enough, years later when my friends and I started playing Mechwarrior, the collectible miniature game, they didn't want to hear about the evil cycle collectible games have.

This next game I heard a lot of good things. One of the top 5 games of 2008 from what I gathered. And all this time I assumed it was a board game. Dominion, in fact, is card game. Some 500 cards to be exact, all in one box. More importantly, it's not a collectible card game but instead has expansions like any other board game. I'll have to find a way to pick this one up.

The next card game is an abstract version of a typical miniature game, but without the minis. War of Edadh is a collectible card wargame with armies and troops and terrain. It's not at all like Battlegrounds where the cards are units and played out like miniature games on a table with dice. WoE is more abstract than that which involves card drafting and card management and without- as far as I know- dice. Currently, I am more intrigued on how to play this game than I am wanting to pick it up at the moment.

The last game is quite the opposite of War of Edadh. Malifaux by Wyrd, more famous for their minis, is a miniature game without dice. The game instead uses decks of cards to determine outcomes such as combat and magic in the game. Very different from every other mini game out there as dice are practically a must in the genre. This is another game that I'm just curious to try out now than to pick up. Although getting into the game is quite affordable ($60 for the book and a faction box), for me, I'm just tapped out for miniature games.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Ouch, My Wallet!

Wow, a few things popped up just recently that made me jump up and down like a little kid and sad like a whimpering puppy at the same time.

First, Games Workshop recently announced that they will release Space Hulk, an old board game I remember fondly as a kid. As soon as a I saw the pictures of the gorgeous minis and board tiles I was ready to add it my basket. That quickly came to a halt when I saw the price tag of $99!!! Ouch!

Second came from Sony. Sony is finally releasing a new slim version(smaller, less noise, and less power consumption) of the PS3 with a bigger hard drive(from 80gb to 120gb). They also dropped the price to $299. While that is extremely sexy to me it's still a fairly big chunk of moolah. I would still have to pick up a game and/or a couple Bluerays on top of that.

Finally, Warseer posted new pics of the upcoming new Skaven Clanrat minis slated for later this year and they are awesome unfortunately. I was hoping they wouldn't make any new Clanrats as I already have 3 units of 30 clanrats and another unit of 30 in the works. More new Skaven minis are coming and if they look just as good as the new Clanrats I really don't know what I'm going to do. Hmmm, there is a plasma bank near my work...

As much as I loved Space Hulk back in the day, $100 for a board game is just way too rich for my blood. For me it was the easy yet fun rules that made this game rock. The enriched 40k theme was secondary. I could just very well just pick up an old copy of the game or even make one from scratch from the resources online. Incursion by Grindhouse games has a similar rules to Space Hulk but with a Weird War theme and their stuff- aside from minis- is free. Here's hoping someone I know will pick this one up.

When the first PS3s came out at $399 and $499, I plainly refused to buy one. But, I knew I was going to get the PS3 eventually. Now that they announced the price drop I may be picking one up sooner rather than later.

The new Skaven minis will also probably be a definite buy depending on the sculpts of course. I'm just hoping I won't be buying the entire new line! Curse you GW and your fluffy rats!

Ack, all of this in a span of a week. Shortly after GenCon even. I didn't go to the convention but I sure don't want to see my buddies who went. They'll start talking about more crap that I'd want to pick up. Game overload man! Game overload!