I helped fund a Kickstarter for dice with unusual number ranges. I ended up with several sets that include a d22, d19, d18, d17, d15, d13, d11, and d9, plus a hexadecimal dice (1 to F), a d3 in Roman numerals, and a d26 alphabet dice. My intent was to spring them on my players when their character h...
Recently, Mantic Games released the PDF version of the Epic Warpath rulebook to Kickstarters. I appreciate this, because it means that while I wait for my game assets to arrive, I can start learning the game. As a player of Firefight, I predicted the rules would be at least a little familiar, bu...
In 2023, Games Workshop re-released the first edition (titled Rogue Trader) of Warhammer 40,000 to celebrate the game's 30-ish year anniversary. I'm a sucker for nostalgia for things I missed out on, so I bought a copy and now I'm reviewing it as I read. This post covers Chapter 4: The Advanced...
As obvious as it may seem, when I play a tabletop game with a roleplaying element to it, I never lose sight of where I am. I'm always aware that I'm sat at a table, manipulating game tokens or character sheets, flipping through pages of rules, rolling dice, and so on. After the game is over, and I'm...
Back when I bought my first box of Warhammer 40,000 miniatures, I naïvely expected to open the box, follow the assembly instructions, and end up with a valid battle unit. What I found instead was that every soldier in the box could be assembled with any one of several weapons, heads (helmet and no...
Combat Heroes was a fun experiment in game design by Joe Dever and released in 1986. Each book was a pick-your-path story told mostly through illustrations. Each Combat Heroes book showed you a fantasy world, which you explored through a navigational system that guided you to a corresponding page...
Games Workshop re-released the first edition (titled Rogue Trader) of Warhammer 40,000 to celebrate the game's 30th anniversary, and I'm reviewing it chapter by chapter. This post covers the second half of Chapter 3: Age of the Imperium.
So far, Age of the Imperium has provided a little lo...
There aren't any simple armies in the Warhammer 40,000 game. Even if you field 4 units of the same one-trick soldiers, there are army rules and enhancements and detachments and stratagems to consider. Simply put, Warhammer 40,000 is a game designed to provide options to the player and force diff...
I've been thinking about the games I play, and what kinds of games I tend to enjoy playing the most. I've written about soundtracks, atmosphere and mechanics previously, and those apply equally to tabletop (yes, even music and video games. Another thing that often attracts me to a game is th...
Everybody knows that a wargame doesn't require a Games Master. You grab a friend, you each put an army on the table, and you play. Nothing could be simpler or, for a busy roleplayer tired of trying to find the convergence of an available date and time across 5 people's schedules, more liberating. An...
Games Workshop re-released the first edition (titled Rogue Trader) of Warhammer 40,000 to celebrate the game's 30th anniversary. I purchased it upon [re]release, and I'm reviewing it chapter by chapter. This post covers the first section of the very long Chapter 3: The Age of the Imperium.
C...
I build a lot of dungeons for the tabletop games I play. They're not always literal dungeons, but conceptually almost every map layout with enclosed spaces is a game dungeon. The game dungeon is a way to enforce passage through specific points on the map (usually a door), to conceal surprises hidden...
Games Workshop re-released the first edition (titled Rogue Trader) of Warhammer 40,000 to celebrate the game's 30th anniversary. I bought a copy to taste the nostalgia that, as someone who started out in 40k in the 2000s, I never got to experience. I'm reviewing it chapter by chapter, and this p...
Within any gaming tradition, there emerges a myth that a "perfect" example of a game exists. A perfect game doesn't exist, of course, because we all have a unique definition of perfect. That said, if a game is close to being perfect, it's Firefight by Mantic Games, and here's why.
I'm a fan of...
In 2018, Games Workshop released the Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress. A combination between a dungeon crawl, a roleplaying game, and a wargame, Blackstone Fortress is a campaign-based game with varied mechanics and an emerging storyline. I bought the game 4 years after its release, and it's...
Monkey Palace is a board game by Lego about building stairs to the monkey palace, and it combines the innate fun of building Lego with clever board game mechanics that include resource management and board strategy. It's not just a Lego set, it's a legitimately well-designed board game that exercis...