I've been playing a lot of Shadowrun (5th edition) and Imperium Maledictum and Call of Cthulhu lately, because some folks I play with seem to enjoy investigative adventures. I was discussing this with my partner (who herself is one of the players who generally prefers investigation and to comb...
I'm reading The Hobbit again, as I live-action roleplay as a Tolkien scholar in an attempt to understand Middle Earth, its lore, and its effect on modern gaming. I'm reviewing each chapter of the book as I read, and this is my review of Chapter 9: Barrels out of bond.
This review contains sp...
I recently saw the movie Barbarian (2022), and these are my notes about it. This isn't a review, it's honestly just so I remember what the movie was about 3 months from now. This post does contain spoilers. Cutting to the chase: It's an OK horror movie that starts stronger than any horror movie ma...
The second scenario in order of difficulty rating is Rising Tide, one of the adventures included in the main game. My short spoiler-free review is that Rising Tide is one of my favourite scenarios, full of investigation, mystery, and spooky atmosphere. For the rest of this review, there are mino...
Since getting a Steam Deck, I've actually been playing games in my Steam library. Recently I played and finished Hitman Go, and these are my reflections on the game.
The Go series of games by Square Enix are puzzle games set in popular video game universes. Hitman Go is set in the Hitman...
I'm reading The Hobbit again, as I live-action roleplay as a Tolkien scholar in an attempt to understand Middle Earth, its lore, and its effect on modern gaming. I'm reviewing each chapter of the book as I read, and this is my review of Chapter 8: Flies and Spiders.
This review contains spoi...
Every day of Advent in 2024, Games Workshop surprised Warhammer 40,000 players by releasing new detachment rules for every possible army, and everybody loved it. Then, just a few days ago, Games Workshop revealed 3 more detachments, completely out of the blue, and everybody loved it. The reason...
There are so many possible armies you can build for the 10th edition of Warhammer 40,000 that it can seem almost impossible to understand at first glance. In this post, I decipher the rules for army building in Warhammer 40,000.
The first thing to know, if you're completely new to wargaming, i...
If you're a fan of horror movies, you may have experienced the half-way horror curse. It's that point at which a perfectly good horror movie that's been keeping you guessing for about 45 minutes finally reveals the monster to you, and then you promptly lose interest. It's the same problem, technical...
I'm playing through all the Mansions of Madness scenarios I own, and reviewing each one as I go. The first one is Cycle of Eternity, which is one of the introductory adventure included in the main game. My short spoiler-free review is that Cycle of Eternity is a combat-heavy and very challengi...
Recently, I took a blacksmithing workshop. I haven't felt the need to do any more smithing, but it did satisfy my curiosity about the process. Also, it's made me think about metal than I used to. While painting my army for Hattusa, I knew I wanted it to be very clear that they existed in the Bronze...
In previous blog posts, I've lamented the lack of historical miniatures where I live and how that forced me to use a Carthaginian army as my Romans, and an Ancient Egyptian army for my Ptolemaic army. Very recently, a local mini reseller added a proper Roman army, so I sent my Carthaginians back to...
Since getting a Steam Deck, I've actually been playing games in my Steam library. Recently I played and finished Lara Croft Go, and these are my reflections on the game.
The Go series of games by Square Enix are puzzle games set in popular video game universes. Lara Croft Go is set in the...
In a wargame, you frequently have 20 or 30 or even 100 miniatures in your army. This can be confusing for a few reasons, not the least of which the sheer number of physical objects you have to keep track of. Each miniature generally gets to move and attack, and may also be subject to morale checks o...
Caverns of the Spore Lord is an adventure from Kobold Press, and the first written for the Tales of the Valiant product. ToV is a 5e system, so it's directly compatible with other 5e implementations. It's a short adventure for level 1 adventurers, with just 17 pages of content not including appen...
I've written about roleplay and roleplaying in reverse in wargames, but the only reason I have the luxury of waxing poetic about additional options for wargaming is because it's such a flexible system. Roleplay can fit nicely into a wargame, just as much as a wargame fits nicely into an RPG (tha...