Frostgrave, Halo Ground Command and other tabletop minis

[Hahma]

Trex knows (from the TWD FB page) that I've been busy of late, playing a solo campaign that I designed for The Walking Dead: All Out War. Though, I did post the first scenario here, so I suppose anyone here knows I started it anyway.

I didn't bother posting more detailed reports here for the two attempts to get through scenario 2, or the ones for scenarios 3 and 4, as it was becoming quite redundant, as I had posted them on the TWD FB page, and then found a new more active TWD FB page and posted it there too. When I first posted the scenario report for the first one here, I also did a session report on BGG, and have just been adding to it as I've finished each one. So yeah, while the first post takes the longest and the subsequent repeats are quicker to other places, it still takes time, and I've pretty much stopped the really detailed play by play, as that was kind of dry and took a long time, but I still think they are decent reads with cool pictures.

Anyway, I figured I'd post a link to that BGG entry here, so that anyone interested can check it out.

Heathville solo campaign for The Walking Dead: All Out War on BGG

[TREX]

Hey @Hahma , I just got my morgan booster in and went to counting my Mantic points for abraham. I thought I was closer. I'm only at 13 points with this last booster. Dang. Gotta get 2 more before Abraham. I think I'll finish all the card resources for Frostgrave before I jump into another Project. I'd like to get some play time in here sometime and think I should get one of these projects all finished up. I'd really like to finish painting all the figures for one of these games. Star Wars Imperial Assault-Frostgrave-Walking Dead All out War. I've got so many to do though.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by TREX

Hey @Hahma , I just got my morgan booster in and went to counting my Mantic points for abraham. I thought I was closer. I'm only at 13 points with this last booster. Dang. Gotta get 2 more before Abraham. I think I'll finish all the card resources for Frostgrave before I jump into another Project. I'd like to get some play time in here sometime and think I should get one of these projects all finished up. I'd really like to finish painting all the figures for one of these games. Star Wars Imperial Assault-Frostgrave-Walking Dead All out War. I've got so many to do though.

Morgan is cool. Sucks that you are a couple away from Abraham, me too.

Too many projects, I know for sure. But at least I have gotten to play a lot of TWD with my solo campaign. I forced myself to do this so that I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor and money spent. It's been a lot of fun. When I say "forced myself" it's not in a bad way, it's just that the painting and other hobby aspects become such a ritual, I need to force myself to stop once in a while.

[Hahma]

I got a little more Walking Dead goodness today. The bigger box has the 4 plastic vehicles, 6 cool plastic barriers and 10 plastic objectives of various types. Then the smaller boxes are the equipment card set that gives me a lot more options for equipping survivors, and will really help if I get a good amount of players playing. The other box has the 6 resin prone figures (though one is kneeling). There are 4 prone walkers and 2 survivors, all on bases. They will be nice for when there's a knockdown of a walker or survivor, you can place the prone figure there instead of just the tipped over model, as well as when a survivor gets killed and you replace them with a prone walker, these will be nice.

3 more Mantic Points, but it only takes me to 14 Next order I make will take me over the top to get Abraham

[japes]

Originally Posted by Hahma

I got a little more Walking Dead goodness today. The bigger box has the 4 plastic vehicles, 6 cool plastic barriers and 10 plastic objectives of various types. Then the smaller boxes are the equipment card set that gives me a lot more options for equipping survivors, and will really help if I get a good amount of players playing. The other box has the 6 resin prone figures (though one is kneeling). There are 4 prone walkers and 2 survivors, all on bases. They will be nice for when there's a knockdown of a walker or survivor, you can place the prone figure there instead of just the tipped over model, as well as when a survivor gets killed and you replace them with a prone walker, these will be nice.

3 more Mantic Points, but it only takes me to 14 Next order I make will take me over the top to get Abraham

I guess that's their ploy to get you to buy their stuff but couldn't you have used regular store bought cars and stuff instead of the first box you mentioned? I see the point in the smaller boxes with the cards and figures and such. Heroscape is the only miniature game I've ever played. I know my wife would be thrilled with me purchasing more figures but I do like the objective scenario ideas you've been showing off. The Co-op is really interesting for me as my son loves co-op games and Heroscape. The zombie theme would be a big no for my wife right now but the mechanics here are could be extended to other things.

Sorry I guess that doesn't contribute to this thread in any way but I've been following along for some time now and wanted to say, what's up. 58 pages in less than a year is impressive.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by japes

I guess that's their ploy to get you to buy their stuff but couldn't you have used regular store bought cars and stuff instead of the first box you mentioned? I see the point in the smaller boxes with the cards and figures and such. Heroscape is the only miniature game I've ever played. I know my wife would be thrilled with me purchasing more figures but I do like the objective scenario ideas you've been showing off. The Co-op is really interesting for me as my son loves co-op games and Heroscape. The zombie theme would be a big no for my wife right now but the mechanics here are could be extended to other things.

Sorry I guess that doesn't contribute to this thread in any way but I've been following along for some time now and wanted to say, what's up. 58 pages in less than a year is impressive.

Of course it contributes to this thread Japes. Never be concerned about chiming in here about whatever. People don't have to add photos or talk about their minis games or painting etc. here. Your comment is related to one of the games here, so of course it's contributing

I washed the pieces from that bigger box last night, so they would dry overnight and I can prime them today since we are getting unseasonably warm weather and I can spray them in the garage.

Here's a picture of what came in that box, as well as the 6 lighter colored pieces from the prone figures box. I put 2 of the the painted survivors in the picture to show for scale. It's a little dark, but the details are great, with tires, crates, wooden planks, steel barriers etc. I have the 6 barriers lined up to show both sides of them, since there are 3 pairs of them. Then the 10 smaller pieces are great objective tokens over various types instead of using the cardboard tokens that come in the core set. Adds more to the visuals in the game. The vehicles are hollow plastic, but sturdy. I do have 4 metal cars in 1:43 scale that you would have seen in some pictures here. I got them back in the superheroscape days. But I had wanted to add more cars and this set seemed to give me more cars and other things that I wanted too. The solo campaign I've been running is based on the outbreak being fairly recent, so it looks all like a nice little country town. But with the wrecked cars I just got and the barriers, it will help in having a more established time period after the outbreak, where stuff looked more trashed.



The core set just comes with a basic way of playing 1v1, with having objective tokens placed in the zombie area and you have to fight to collect the most and deal with both each other, as well as the zombies. I've played 1v1 and it's fun, but a whole different game experience than co-op or solo. That's the beauty of this system for me, is that it is flexible for people's likes. The Days Gone By expansion, gives you more figures and stuff, but it has a rulebook that adds a couple new rules, as well as giving 6 scenarios that are based on the different scenes in the comic, and show to some extent. They are actually solo for the first 5, with the showdown between Rick and Shane as a 1v1 as the 6th scenario. But those scenarios have both the suggested characters to use in them for the thematic recreation of those events, but also a suggested points cost if you choose to use other survivors, and you could play co-op just as well. The games I've been playing, have all been made up scenarios, and it is really easy to do, just have to be a little creative. The main thing is, that for a certain number of points your survivor group is worth, including equipment, you have to have 1 walker for every 15 points, rounded up. So in my most recent game I finished up Thursday night, I had 169 points worth of survivors and their equipment, so I have to round up to 180 points and place at least 12 walkers (180/15). Then it's just a matter of figuring out what you want the objective of the scenario be and go for it. It's an easy enough system to be able to add your own scenario specific rules to, as I have done for placement of walkers inside buildings and other things.

As far as them luring people to buy more stuff to get Mantic points, I don't know if that is such a big thing. You get 4 points from the core set, and then more points when you buy other things. But people that are into this game, will buy the extra stuff anyway, because they want more stuff from the bigger expansions or more specific survivors to use and buy those booster that come with a couple survivors and a walker and their cards etc. So people that are into the game will buy it anyway and the only real reward when turning them in is the Abraham survivor character or the Michonne alternative pose survivor character. I could buy the Michonne booster if I want her, but there isn't one for Abraham, so that's where I will spend my points and only need like 1 more. But after that and starting from 0 again, there really isn't going to be a reason to chase for more points. Just buy what I want and not consider the points again unless they offer something else unique. But even then, I won't buy more than I really want, just to get those points.

As far as the zombie theme, they are mostly just obstacles in this game that you have to deal with. There is a great AI mechanic to control it and you just have to do follow that and you're good. The game is about managing your actions and taking risks at times. Sometimes they pay off, and sometimes not. And with the Event deck and threat dial, you have a neat system that adds tension so you can't just breeze through. Some games will be easier and some harder, because of the nature of dice rolls, event draws and choices made. So there is a lot of replayability.

The core set isn't all that expensive, but it comes with a paper mat and cardboard pieces for obstacles and cars. It will be a limited experience as there are only so many survivors to choose from, but it would be enough to know if you like the system or not and would want to invest further. I personally spent a good bit of money on it, but I really dig it and will have many ways of playing it. It's easy enough to teach new people, so it's not intimidating as some mins games may be. I am going to demo it at a local convention in March, so I hope to get more people into it.

[Tornado]

Good stuff Hahma.

Looking forward to the paint.

The zombies could be made into aliens or really anything. I always thought a Ghostbusters style theme would be cool for kids, where you capture funny looking spirits.

[japes]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Good stuff Hahma.

Looking forward to the paint.

The zombies could be made into aliens or really anything.

I've thought of that as well but the beauty of the AI system as far as I can tell works because of a "dumb" and slow mass of enemies. Justifying Aliens with the skill to reach this planet but be slow and dumb enough to not see a person sneaking by ruins it...

[TREX]

Originally Posted by japes

I've thought of that as well but the beauty of the AI system as far as I can tell works because of a "dumb" and slow mass of enemies. Justifying Aliens with the skill to reach this planet but be slow and dumb enough to not see a person sneaking by ruins it...

What game mechanics on this thread that really can translate to any genre is frostgrave. I am going to get into playing the walking dead all out war soon as well but it really is a "Zombie" game. I have a ton of stuff for it already, just not painted yet. I guess you could do head to head games without zombies but that's kind of the point with this one. Thing is, with frostgrave, or Ghost archipelago, you really can fight all kinds of miniatures. They have the ones in the books but you can (and I will) add more to my beastiary for the game. @Hahma , I'm cleaning the workshop again to make way for more crafting. I already put some ideas together for my walking dead scope of terrain. It should be pretty fun. I'm going to go for a been apocolypse for a while approach instead of doing newer looking houses and what not.

[Tornado]

What about a swarm?
Rats, spiders, insects.

The aliens could be a lead force sent in to wipe out the humans.
Like introducing a new predator to take out an invasive species.
The aliens send in the 'wolves' first.

They could be a lost race from underground. We tunnel too deep and unleash them.

[TREX]

Originally Posted by Tornado

What about a swarm?
Rats, spiders, insects.

The aliens could be a lead force sent in to wipe out the humans.
Like introducing a new predator to take out an invasive species.
The aliens send in the 'wolves' first.

They could be a lost race from underground. We tunnel too deep and unleash them.

Reminds me of that show "Falling Skies" on Amazon video about the aliens that takeover the world. Good show. They have grunts as well.

[TREX]

@Tornado , I was actually talking to @Hahma , about adding in different types of zombies into my games. I have quite a collection from my Zombicide board games. That could work in a more cooperative sense more than a head to head game without as much play testing. But, i'll probably have a go at the game in its intended form first.