Time To Go Rogue

And our review copy of Rogue Trader, Fantasy Flight’s new Warhammer 40K RPG, arrived this very morning. I’m already 40 pages in, and when you get excited reading a section on character creation, you know that you’re in for something very special.

The cover - Delicious.

Colour illustrations on the inside. A beautiful book.

You have your own starship. What more do you need to know?

Starship combat. Battles in space. Boarding parties. Yum.

A big thick book. A big beeyooty.

I’ll be reading the book this week and updating you fine people with more thoughts via my Twitter feed.

And then, after I get it on the table, I’ll review it for your pleasure.

Zaa Ooo Zaa!

Rogue Trader Opens Trading

Those Fantasy Flight scamps are hollering and hooting about the impending arrival of the Warhammer 40K pen and paper RPG Rogue Trader – according to this story the core rulebook will be shipping out to distributors NEXT WEEK.

The game allows players to explore the 40K universe as a team of rakish rogues who are out to financially benefit from a future of ONLY WAR. And they have a big spaceship. And you can tool it up and go to war in it. Space battles. Yes.

Want more? You’ll get more very soon. DowntimeTown will be receiving a review copy, will be running a campaign, and will be filling you in on all the details.

Keep you posted!

ZOZ

DowntimeTown Episode 8: M:TG – PLANECHASE

Watch the new episode of DowntimeTown now. A chat about Magic: The Gathering and a look at the brand new “Planechase” system. Watch using the vimeo below or on the youTube channel later tonight.

DowntimeTown Episode 8: Magic: the Gathering – Planechase from Robert Florence on Vimeo.

Zaa Ooo Zaa!

The Long Game

Discuss Below!

Small World Gets Bigger!

Days of Wonder has announced that Small World, the charming landgrabbing boardgame, is to be enhanced by some mini-expansions in the months ahead.

New races will be introduced to the game, along with new powers, and many of these additions have been designed and suggested by players of the game.

We’ll be talking about the base game soon enough on this site, but you can read more about the expansions at the Days of Wonder website.

DowntimeTown Episode 7: Space Hulk

DowntimeTown Episode 7 is now live, and it’s all about Space Hulk: Third Edition.

Enjoy.

DowntimeTown Episode 7: Space Hulk from Robert Florence on Vimeo.

Descent: Sea of Blood Info

Descent: Sea of Blood is the name of the brand new Descent campaign setting, and Fantasy Flight is stepping up their efforts in letting us know all about it.

The new campaign lets adventurers set sail on a ship, travel to islands and new dungeons, and deal with all-new Overlords and aquatic encounters.

Descent is a big favourite of the DowntimeTown players, so we’ll be checking out the new FAQ on the Fantasy Flight site – you can check it out with us right HERE.

SPACE HULK DAY

Hopey holds the parcel that's just arrived...

Is it? IS IT? IT IS!!!

SPACE HULK DAY! SPACE HULK DAY! SPACE HULK DAY!

Hopey Versus Space Hulk In Desperate To Open It

Shrinkwrap begone! No foul collectors here!

Sprue The Looking Glass

Full colour Mission Book with plenty of fluff. YES!

The rulebook. Full colour. A Genestealer on front. BAM!

Every single door has UNIQUE ARTWORK. Amazing.

Check out the thickness of the card stock! Swooooon.

Hopey does her very first bit of component bagging.

The soon-to-be legendary debossed map tiles. Beautiful.

Big chunky thick enormous map tiles. Games Workshop have SMASHED IT!

Hopey designs her first mission.

The Broodlord. Oh mammy daddy help me I love it I love it.

The face of a man who has realised that 58 quid was a bargain for the most beautiful production values he's ever seen. And it's SPACE HULK.

HAPPY SPACE HULK DAY!

Please do show me YOUR Space Hulk Day photos in the comments section!

Zaa Ooo Zaa!

Kingsburg Review

Here’s a wee poem I wrote:

Kingsburg, Kingsburg, roll your dice
Play it nasty, Play it nice
Play it once? No, play it twice
Kingsburg, Kingsburg, egg fried rice

Yes, I was eating egg fried rice on the night I first played Kingsburg. It was a birthday present from Ryan. The game, not the egg fried rice. I didn’t ask for rice for my birthday. I’m not an animal.

Kingsburg is another game published by Fantasy Flight, another release from the massive fun-organ of that board game behemoth. It’s designed by two strapping lads called Andrea Chiarvesio and Luca Iennaco, and two more polite young men you couldn’t hope to meet. (I haven’t met them, but I hope to someday.)

Here’s how it works.

The board is covered in illustrations of the King and his advisers. 18 of them in total. Each adviser gives the player some kind of benefit – goods, military strength, and so on. Each game year sees players employing advisers, growing their cities, and preparing to defend their city when war comes each winter.

So how do you employ advisers? You roll dice.

Here are some people. Put dice on their heads.

“Dice?!” the hardcore boardgamer screamed. “You want me to roll a die?! Me?! A thinker?! A man of logic and brilliance?! You want me to roll a die like I’m a 9 year old boy playing “Move Stevie Sausage Into The Frying Pan By Rolling Dice For Hours: The Board Game?”"

The room fell silent. The hardcore boardgamer grabbed the dice from the table. His hand, covered in sores and calluses from poking chits out of cardboard sheets, now contained the offending cubes. He screamed at them, his eyes bulging from their sockets, bloodshot from multiple sessions of Race For The Galaxy the night before.

“Dice?! Wooden creatures of fate and filth! I cast ye out!” He threw them across the room in fury.

They landed. All four dice showed a 6.

The hardcore boardgamer fell to his knees.

“In casting ye, I rolled ye.” He put a gun to his head, his tears flowing now. “And I rolled ye well.”

The bang shook the room. The spray of blood covered the gaming table. The game’s unsleeved cards didn’t stand a chance.

Yes, you roll dice. Let’s say I roll three dice. I roll a 5, a 4 and a 1. The dice allow me to employ some advisers. So I can employ adviser number 5, number 4 and number 1. Or, I can add dice together and employ number 9 and number 1 if that suits me better. Or 4 and 6 (5+1). Or adviser 10 (5+4+1).

Don’t look at me like that. It’s not complicated. I’ll go through it again.

I roll a 6 on all three dice. I can employ adviser 12(6+6) and 6. I can employ adviser 18 (The King). And that’s really all I can do. You get it?

Once an adviser is employed, no-one else can employ him* and get those benefits he provides. So there’s a little bit of interaction in there with players blocking out advisers who can provide their opponents with stuff they need.

The game’s all about building your city to score points, and defending your city from the winter attacks. To build you need goods and cash. To defend your city you need soldiers. Every player gets some soldiers from the King when it comes time to fight, but you’ll be wanting to bolster your defences. You should place your dice on military men to do this. Some advisers even let you have a peek ahead at the enemies you’re going to face, so that you can better prepare. (Worryingly, the Queen seems to know an awful lot about every impending attack. NEVER TRUST A QUEEN.) A failed attempt to force off the enemies will have you knee-deep in shit. Your buildings might be destroyed, you might lose victory points, lose your trousers, all in all it’s a disaster.

Five years of development and survival and the game gets called. The player with the best score wins.

That’s it?

That’s it.

I love you.

Kingsburg is an absolute pleasure to play. On those nights when you don’t feel like playing something that makes you want to disembowel your friends, Kingsburg is the game to pull out. It’s a sunny, summery game. With its beautiful illustrations and colourful dice, it’s a big explosion of happiness on your table.

Richard happily playing Kingsburg, distracted momentarily from thoughts of man's inevitable extinction.

The game flows beautifully too. There’s hardly any downtime. Everyone rolls at the same time, and from then on you’re either choosing your advisers or watching the other players like a hawk, hoping that they don’t shut your options down.

Dice, though. That means that word comes into play again, right? That word I call “The Other L-Word.” Yes, luck is a factor, but doesn’t play as big a part as you would think. Your success or otherwise in Kingsburg will usually be down to the choices you’ve made, which buildings you construct, and which advisers you decide to spread your dice across.

(In the game I almost always choose the Church route. I build the religious buildings. I do this not because I’m at all religious, but because you get a bonus when defending against demons. And it’s always good, in games and in real life, to keep your shit correct when demons are around. Consider this a warning.)

Kingsburg’s a beautiful little game. It’s easy to teach, plays fast, and combines the satisfaction of dice-rolling with the thinky-dinky decision-making of a worker placement Eurogame. My group loves it because it’s light and fun and has a clever mechanic that keeps you interested from start to finish.

And because Kenny, one of our group, is apparently IN it.

One of the esteemed advisers.

One of the esteemed Kennys.

*There’s actually a device that lets you place dice on an adviser who is already taken, but we won’t make the explanation any more complicated than is necessary, OKAY?