Roleplaying games and wargames have drifted apart considerably over the past several decades, but they still retain common elements that sometimes go unnoticed. I've told people that roleplaying games were invented as a sort of alternate format for wargaming, but it doesn't resonate for someone who...
In previous posts, I've deconstructed the setting and characters of the Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord set. In this post, I review the set as a game. To be fair, the mechanics of Dungeoneer sets don't vary all that much, but I want to at least look at what kind experience each set creates...
Me and my players used to wonder about why numbers get so big in Pathfinder. Any Pathfinder player knows that rolls of 35 and 45 aren't uncommon at high levels. It's tempting to fall into the assumption that any big number is the same as a small number once you've found the lowest common denominator...
Warhammer is so big that it can be hard to know where to start, or even if you want to start. Warhammer Academy is a new initiative from Games Workshop to shepherd people into Warhammer 40,000 through structured videos lessons and tutorials, in the style of a MOOC (massive open online course.) I...
Issue 518 of White Dwarf published a chariot racing expansion for Warhammer: Age of Sigmar called Wasteland Death Race. The game rules are just 3 pages, with 4 pages of chariot and driver build options, and 2 pages for a scenario. I don't really play Age of Sigmar, but the game seems pretty...
Models by Games Workshop tend to be humanoid, including humans, elves, and dwarves. However, Games Workshop does release some monsters and beasts as model kits, or included within model kits. This blog post is a list of all the monsters from Games Workshop I could find on the website in 2026.
Defi...
Several months ago, my gaming group started playing through the Labyrinth Adventures book, and frankly it's been tough going. We were surprised to find that Labyrinth Adventures is not actually a campaign, but several stand-alone adventures with a perfunctory side quest to provide the illusion o...
One of the most famously unsung heroes of Middle Earth is Farmer Maggot, the borderlands hobbit who turned away a Nazgûl, and who bravely transported Frodo and his friends (in the book, but not the movie) to the ferry to ensure they had safe passage on their journey. I've been stocking up on hobbits...
I watched all 3 episodes of Aeronautica Imperialis on Warhammer TV streaming, and enjoyed it. It's a story of the Imperium against the Aeldari as they fight for control of a planet that's been claimed by humanity as a forge world. But really it's a story about revenge, obsession, and ultimately ev...
Arcane Duel is a 2-player board game released in White Dwarf issue 524. I played it with my partner the day I got my issue, and we both had a lot of fun. I enjoy it so much, in fact, that I've also played it solo several times, using random dice rolls to imitate an opponent. Obviously I'm a fan,...
No matter how you measure it, I'm a late-comer to tabletop Warhammer 40,000. I've been a reader of Warhammer fiction, and a casual player of Warhammer video games, since the early 2000s but I didn't start playing it on the tabletop until 2020. Because there are no indications that I will not inven...
I like things that are built to last. I don't concede to planned obsolescence (one of the many, many reasons I run Linux), and I don't like overhauls for the sake of just producing something new. And that's why the new edition of Warhammer 40,000, called the 11th edition by everyone but Games Work...
The game Titanic Duel was released in White Dwarf 523, and it enables you to pit two great battle mechs against one another on your tabletop. I have a Knight Questoris model from Games Workshop, and I've used in in some games but, appropriately, it usually dominates the battlefield so I don't use...
I bought the Foot Knights model kit by Wargames Atlantic for a drop-in painting workshop I ran, and I liked them so much I held a few back for my own fantasy miniature collection. This is a review of the model kit's sculpt quality, ease of building, and painting. The quick reivew is simple: If y...
I was talking to a friend about KapCon, an annual Wellington RPG conference that's been going for 35 years or something ridiculous like that, and he told me that he didn't think he would attend. It didn't occur to me at the time, but my friend's social anxiety was the main blocker. He thought that t...
The term terrain, in the context of roleplaying games and wargames, refers to both the ground under the feet of your character, as well as the non-living objects around your character. If your character is in a forest, then the terrain is the forest floor, all its growth and composting leaves, and...