Test of Honour (Unboxing Article)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with an article on one of our new favorites, Test of Honour from Warlord Games.  It’s a skirmish game set in feudal Japan, and covers a variety of potential scenarios and army building choices.  Today we’re going to unbox the Test of Honour starter set (we picked our copy up at Recruits 26, this last weekend in Lee’s Summit) in pictures to try out a new format.  We’ve done unboxing videos in the past, but we’re going to try a photo gallery with words.  Let’s dig into Test of Honour and look at what’s in the box.

Overview

 

The Test of Honour Starter Set come with the components to make 35 plastic miniatures ( 20 Ashigaru spearmen, 10 Ashigaru bowmen/musketmen, and 5 Samurai).  It also has 10 specialty dice, 10 special plastic multibases, 21 Red Faction Recruitment Cards, 21 Blue Faction Recruitment Cards, 6 Injury Cards, 10 Dishonour Cards, 23 Skill Cards, a host of Tokens, and 2 Dimensional Terrain pieces.  

Let’s break down each of those things and take a closer look at the components to see just exactly what we’re talking about.  

Warhammer 40,000 Army rebuild (8th Edition) Part 2

Hey Game Fans, We’re back with another take on our Warhammer 40,000 army project.  Last time we talked about the Deathwing Terminators of the Dark Angels Chapter and our current level of troops in that group.  Now there are a couple more loose threads we need to cover, and then we need to talk about what else we need to pick up to flesh the army out and make it better/more interesting to deal with.  (You can check back on that article here)  

Plot Point 11 The Bad Guys (Part 1)

I’m changing some things up with the blog and looking at a variety of new and old ideas in gaming.  I’d like to spend part of today talking about some recurring tropes and ideas that crop up in fantasy storytelling and how they can be used (and abused) in an RPG to some sort of effect.  Today’s volume is a little different because we’re not going to be looking at a specific instance or idea of a plot trap, but a larger concept that is overarching throughout the fantasy RPG genre and beyond.  There’s a conceit that runs through most of the RPGs published that their are default “Bad Guy” races that want nothing more to pillage and destroy or subvert the world to their own ends.  It’s a very unsubtle way of looking at the world, and it’s overly simplistic. Let’s dive into a different way of looking at antagonists in fantasy role-playing (over several parts) and see if we can’t look at this in a more nuanced fashion.  

Recruits Photo Gallery

Hey Game Fans, we finally got our pictures from the Recruits Convention and we managed to put together a photo gallery for you to take a look at.  There's like 60 of these, so I hope it doesn't eat your phone's ability to see everything on mobile browsing. 

 

 

There are several games and companies represented here and we hope you find the event as interesting as we did and hope to see all of you at it again next time it comes around. 

 

Exalted Character Creaton Part 2

Hey Game Fans, today we’re going to take a stab at making a character for Exalted 3rd Edition.  This is after 3 solid reads of the relevant chapters and digging into the nuts and bolts of everything but charms (that’s a big chapter).  We’re going to do a bit more than we usually do because Exalted has such a mythic feel, you can tell stories that are larger than life, and that means we’re going to be doing things slightly out of order.  We promise to double check our math and hopefully get everything right, but we make goofs once in awhile too.  So let’s dig into this article and get things started.  If you’re curious what we’re talking about and don’t know what Exalted is, check out our First Looks article Here.  

 

Adventurer's League Season 4

Hey Game Fans we’re going to start our breakdown of Adventurer’s League Season 4 next week with the actual adventures and the experience point breakdowns for each, but today we’re going to talk about some of the story elements of the Season and a couple of ideas that we think are important to consider when gearing up for Season 4.  This will also probably be the last season we cover this way, because this is really the last season we were actively participating in Adventurer’s League.  We got out of it before the start of season 5, and we’ve decided not to cover that season as a result.  Let’s take a closer look at Season 4 of Adventurer’s League and have a bit of a discussion about Season 4 and some of the fun you can have with it.  

Recruits 26 First Impressions

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with a roving report about the experiences we had this weekend at The Recruits Convention in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.  Billed as a Wargames Convention for all genres and eras, Recruits is a Convention over 3 days, with a host of events, vendors, and manufacturers over the span of that time.  Entry Fee was very friendly, with a badge costing 5 dollars, (I believe they were free for students).  I took the Wook with me, and we spent the entire afternoon banging around the convention, looking for shiny things and awesomeness.  We were not disappointed, (and i got demoed into buying a game).  Now, we’ll be putting the pictures to go with this story up later in the week, but we would love to thank the OSG (Organization of Strategic Gamers) for putting on such a fun show.  

Exalted Character Creation Plan Part 1

Hey Game Fans, today we’re going to take a stab at making a character for Exalted 3rd Edition.  This is after 3 solid reads of the relevant chapters and digging into the nuts and bolts of everything but charms (that’s a big chapter).  We’re going to do a bit more than we usually do because Exalted has such a mythic feel, you can tell stories that are larger than life, and that means we’re going to be doing things slightly out of order.  We promise to double check our math and hopefully get everything right, but we make goofs once in awhile too.  So let’s dig into this article and get things started.  If you’re curious what we’re talking about and don’t know what Exalted is, check out our First Looks article Here.  

First Looks (1879)

So we're back from an unintended vacation caused by a flu bug.  Hopefully we get everything back on track and on time and we're going to pick up some of the slack we missed while we were down.  Today we're going to take a first look at 1879 from FASA Games.  It's a wild action adventure setting based in an alternate history and forces the characters to deal with colonialism, indigenous natives, areas of vast resources, and a host of other wild and crazy encounters along the way.  We haven't gotten a chance to take a hard look at the mechanics of the system, so today we're going to talk about the setting and some of the conflicts that drive 1879.

Plot Point 10 The Connections

I’m changing some things up with the blog and looking at a variety of new and old ideas in gaming.  I’d like to spend part of today talking about some recurring tropes and ideas that crop up in fantasy storytelling and how they can be used (and abused) in an RPG to some sort of effect.  Today’s volume is going to feature The Connections phenomenon.  There are a variety of ways this idea can be used to great effect in a fantasy rpg.  Let’s take a look at how that can work.  Further, we’re going to spend the next few weeks examining other supporting elements that characters rely on in a typical role-playing game.  As always, we hope these help you out with setting up your own adventures, campaigns and stories.

Gaming News and other assorted Mischief

So Game Fans, it’s been a busy weekend after Gencon (and though we didn’t make the show we’ll cover some interesting things that we heard about from the show) and Twitch has some interesting news for the rest of us as well.  First up, Gencon news

Warhammer 40,000 (8th Edition) Army Rebuild

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with some more work on our Warhammer 40,000 army and working out a list and some other nonsense.  The first part of the process for me personally is to put together a list of the units i have and what they are armed with.  So i spent a chunk of time on Sunday making a list, checking it twice, and seeing what models i had from my 7th edition version of my Deathwing list.  Bear in mind, this list has precisely 0 dreadnoughts in it, and i have also left out the Land Raiders that would be traditionally carrying my guys into battle as well.  So let’s dig into the Models i have, and see what sort of trouble shakes out.

Star Wars (Taking Wounds and Stress)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with another look at the Edge of the Empire Star Wars Roleplaying Game from Fantasy Flight Games.  So far we’ve covered a lot of the rules for how equipment works, how to build a character, and a host of other topics.  Today we’re going to take a look at how characters take and absorb damage, and what happens when you take too much.  Let’s dig into strain and wounds, and see how they affect your character.

Backgrounds Part VII (Sailor, Soldier, and Urchin)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with the final part of our series on Backgrounds for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.  Today we’re going to take a hard look at the Sailor. Soldier, and the Urchin. Backgrounds and how they affect your character’s background and possible development as you level up.  First up, we have the Sailor, then the Soldier,, and then we’ll conclude with the Urchin.