Fall Gaming Round Up

As I discussed before, this fall has been absolutely lousy with quality game releases. Now that we're getting near the end of that release season, I wanted to give my impressions of the games I played.

Join me after the break for some game recommendations.

Point Cost Shifting and Model Redemption

Warmachine is at a dangerous place in it's release cycle: a new Hordes book has been released and is shaking up the meta a bit, while all the Warmachine armies sit unchanged since the last book update (note: this happens for Hordes as well, just on the opposite cycle.)

This phenomenon will naturally be resolved when new releases start flowing again, so it's not like the game is in any danger of imploding. What I find most interesting is that it is almost always during this period of time that talks of "Mk. 3", "Mk. 2 Remix", significant errata, etc, start cropping up.

The obvious explanation for this desire is that players get burned out on playing with and against the "same 'ol stuff", and thus seek to shake the system up in the most explicit way possible. While I do think this is part of it, I think there is an thought process which leads to that conclusion, and examining that thought process yields the root of the problem.

Interstellar

After having a week or so to digest Interstellar, my feelings are the same as after I first watched it: its a pretty good sci-fi movie, with awesome visuals, a fantastic soundtrack, and some fun (at least for me) concepts that it plays around with.

It tries a little too hard in places, but overall this movie is Nolan in fine form: a strong narrative voice, clear themes, and very impressive cinematography. More in-depth and spoiler-y thoughts after the break.

One last thing before venturing into spoiler territory: we saw this movie in IMAX, and I think it did make a difference. The already impressive visuals of some of the space travel sequences were astonishing on that huge screen, and the sound was used very effectively to pull you into the experience. The biggest downside is that the movie ends up being so damn loud in places that I walked out feeling half-deaf, but that aside it felt like money well spent.

Painting Log: Ototo

There is a phenomenon that I've encountered in all my years of painting miniatures, one that I should have a cute name for by now, but in the absence of a really good name I'll just refer to it as a "loomer."

Warmachine: Reckoning Model Art Previews

The latest league vaults just opened up, and they hoarfed upon us some very interesting concept art for models that will be in Warmachine: Reckoning.

Join me after the break for the images, as well as some quick impressions.

Relic Knights - Noh In-Game Model Impressions

As a follow up to the recent game of Relic Knights I played, I wanted to sort out my thoughts on the models I used. With other battle reports I'd just toss that in at the tail end of the write up, but Relic Knights is a little weird (and sort of like Malifaux) in that not every game is going to be a good demonstration of what a model is capable of. And it's also not a game system where you necessarily build lists just to feature a specific model/combo (though I think RK lends itself to that a lot more than Malifaux does.)

With that in mind, and with the caveat that these impressions are based off of a whopping one game's experience, join me after the break for my thoughts about various Noh Empire models.

Relic Knights - Zineda (Noh) vs Leopold Magnus (Black Diamond)

I've mused before about the importance of having other game systems to rotate through as a way of relieving gaming fatigue. The upside of this approach is that you always have something to play - if you're bored/frustrated/burned out with what you've been playing, just switch it up!

The downside to this approach is that you can end up with systems you don't play very often and models that collect dust. I've tried to cull my model collection down to the games and armies that I'm most excited to paint and play. Even then, there are only so many hours to devote to gaming so some games are going to get more attention than others.

So when one of my gaming buddies brought up the prospect of dusting off the Relic Knights stuff we all bought, I happily agreed. Join me after the break for a recap of the game (this system defies the traditional battle report structure something fierce,) and impressions from my second full game of Relic Knights.