Conan Kickstarter

So I saw this Kickstarter mentioned on Plastic Legions the other day and I could not resist signing up for it. It has already smashed through two or three Stretch goals since Tuesday and it seems like it is worth it for the figures alone. Fingers crossed.

I also got an email from the Dungeon Saga Kickstarter by Mantic. They have set up a pledge manager and will be inviting me to get onto it sometime this week. I am a relative newbie to Kickstarter, Conan will only be my 4th, and the first time I have been involved in a project complex enough to need a pledge manager. I suppose it's nice to be able to add stuff on if you passed on it the first go round, but it seems a little overly complex. We shall see.

I realized on Tuesday as well that I could catch up to my target by painting 171 points worth of stuff. Of course since then I've been distracted, so we shall see how that goes. I really need to focus today to have a chance of getting something submitted.

We'll see if a kid sick at home and volunteering will allow me the time I need.

Games played, Comics read, giveaways entered.

Hi All,

Still on vacation, and as usual not really finding the time to get to all the things that I packed for down time during the trip.

We just finished our second game of Conan Munchkin in as many days. My daughter won yesterday with an actual strategy and some fairly cunning play. It makes a barbarian father proud. My son won today, and although my wife helps him make most of his decisions, he had a pretty good end game for the win. My wife threatened me with the sofa after I played a Level 19 wandering monster on her to stop her from reaching level 9. She ended up having to run away and died in the attempt.

I purchased a couple of graphic novels yesterday. The first was King Conan: The Phoenix on the Sword

From www.comicastle.com

Good quick read, great art. I think you can't go wrong with any of the Timothy Truman Conan comics.

Next was the Walking Dead Vol 1.

From darkfaerietales.com

I am an avid follower of the television series and considered buying the compendium, but didn't want to carry the phone book sized thing in my luggage. So I've gone with the trade paper graphic novel. Even if you know the story from the show the book is different enough to keep it interesting. This book was like potato chips, I devoured it and wanted another immediately. Although it has a lot of swear words my 7 year old was very engaged by it and even picked it up and read some on his own. I'll take it because he is not a very strong reader and avoids reading at all costs. If he has to be exposed to a few "sentence enhancers" along the way, that's a price I'm willing to pay. He hears that and worse from his old man anyway, so who am I kidding.

Now onto pimpin' the giveaways.

I got over my self pity and threw my name in for the Darksword miniatures over at Wargames and Railroads here.

I then also jumped in on the 100K views giveaway happening over at Trouble at T'Mill, you can see the prizes for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Good luck to everyone entered.

Planning games for vacation.

As I mentioned previously, I am going on vacation this weekend and I need to put together a gaming kit. I intend to do some more Chronicales of Loa, and perhaps an RRtK battle in the Talomir campaign. In addition to this I was thinking on how I could make a sort of portable gaming kit.

So here is my plan so far:

I've ordered some stands from Precis Intermedia for paper figures here. I'm going to print out some figures from Paper Friends and print out some terrain form the various sets that I have.

I'm thinking of focusing on WHAA/ Swordplay / WHL for a dungeon crawl. I also have the Jewel of Murinae scenario from THW. I still also want to do a Cthulhu themed game of LTL. Thus far I have read WHAA and LTL but only thumbed through Swordplay and not read WHL at all. so I may cut my losses with WHL. The other question is if my brothers friends want to play. He said they will be coming for this big party my folks are throwing and like to game, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go live with a bunch of gamers. On the other hand it could be fun.

I also did a little retail therapy the other day and bought a card game box and die bag made by Fantasy Flight Games from my local Barnes & Noble bookstore. The box is meant for holding your Magic cards, but will work well for holding Munchkin Conan. It even has a little box that attaches to the bottom that I'm going to use for holding the die and level marker tokens.

Two part card game box and large die bag.

What is best in life?

Crushing your wife at Munchkin Conan and hearing her lamentation!

We played another game yesterday, just my wife, son and I. My daughter was busy watching tv or something. This game was at my wife's insistence.

The boy actually won the game, and I was in last place and willing to leave it there. But no! Someone had to beat me. So we continued play. As we both got up in levels I came up against a high level monster. My wife had a card in her hand that gave it +10. I was down by 5 and then I saw it. I had a +3, one use only item and noticed that the monster gave an additional +2 to one use items. That coupled with the fact that I was the warrior class and won all ties allowed me to win the encounter and beat her.

Here is a link to a youtube video of Wil Wheaton playing a game with Steve Jackson that goes over the rules pretty well. It's a little long at 29 minutes.

And Dale of Dales Wargames turned me on to Munchkin Land, some great podcasts of Munchkin game play. Always interesting and funny.

I've been meaning to post here but actually have so much to post about I'm a little bit paralyzed by the amount of stuff.

I've gotten in a bunch more figures but am concerned that I photograph them right, I don't want to hurry and give you a bunch of crappy pictures with a good camera, like I did with the BUM stuff.

I'm finally sorting myself out in the Loa campaign so that should be heating up again and I think I have some inspiration for painting in doing some figures from the Caesar Adventurer set. Hopefully I can get my act together this week.

I've been cleared to start exercising a little and it has been killing me. My abs are doing okay but it feels more like 2 years than 2 months since I've had a proper workout. I ran 1.25 miles today but it felt slow and heavy. I also have been having weird anxiety dreams the last few nights and actually woke up this morning thinking it was Monday. All this from a guy who doesn't have a job.

So I've gone off my diet a bit and am relaxing with a little wine and this update to you my friends. Hope all is well with you and filled with fun toys and games.

Test of Android Blogger app

Since I am traveling again I thought I'd try this app again while still at home, connected to my network.
So here are the two things I bought myself for fathers day.
Square shooters is an interesting dice game. I mainly bought it to see how they get the deck of cards on the dice. I thought it might be a nice solution when using a playing card activation mechanic or for characterization ala Tony Bath.
The Conn title is a Dark Horse publication, but a different series from the others I have read.
(Crosses fingers and hits submit.)




***Edited from my Laptop***

Well it worked but it looks like it would be better not to use it for AAR's. The pictures were automatically scaled down, even though I took them with my phone. You also don't seem to be able to place them in the text. Also I would need to remember to place the pictures backwards. I put the dice picture in first and it showed up second.

So over all it will work, but I'll try to use it only as a last resort.

Also stupid Auto complete put down Conn instead of Conan. >:[

Mother's Day purchases

It's true, I have no shame. While we were out and about on Mother's Day I some how convinced my wife to let me take the kids to Barnes & Noble while she shopped for shoes.

So I came away with Conan: The Frost Giants Daughter

and Elder Sign

I decided to buy the Conan title mainly because it was the only one available. The story so far is good but I don't care for the art as much as in the other two of the series I have. (Born on the Battlefield and Free Companions). The coloring seems washed out, the line drawing a bit messy/ sketchy and the inking also light. Perhaps I'm just ruined by the Roy Thomas et al works where everything was very crisp marvel drawing.

I haven't had a chance to play Elder Sign yet, but the rules are only twelve pages and it seems pretty straight forward. Seems like it will work well for solo play.

I'll try to get in a few games and reports soon.

Reading Update

So the first casualty of my attention deficit was my “now reading” list. I have now updated it with what I am currently reading (Fiasco by Thomas Ricks).

In the interim I read, or rather skimmed How to Build Realistic Model Railroad Scenery and another book in the series about modeling cities.

I then also read the Dark Horse edition of Conan: Free Companions

 and started reading a used copy of Conan: The Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Savage Barbarian by Roy Thomas.

The railroad modeling books are good, but you can get a lot of this info on youtube I think. So definitely a good library borrow.

Free Companions was a fun read, covering the story starting at the end of Conan's run as a mercenary captain in the service of Kjoth to the destruction of his Zaporazian (sp?) Cossack band just before the story where he ends up on the island in the Vilayet Sea (the name of that story is not coming to me right now.

The Roy Thomas book has lots of cool art and is thematically arranged, sort of like an encyclopedia. Fun stuff.

I bought the Ricks book awhile back and I guess it is fitting to read it now as the US prepares to pull out of Iraq.  

A Conan Skirmish Game?

I had this strange feeling of Veja Du, you know that feeling that I had never seen this before. I was looking at the blog roll for Tabletop Gaming News and stumbled upon this post http://tinysolitarysoldiers.blogspot.com/2011/10/moar-crommmm.html so I looked around and realized that Matakishi had done it again and made up a Conan game. It looks like it could be fun and of course he has set it up in his inimitable style. I would also like to draw attention to the "Otherworld" idol.

This scenery is just fantastic. As a boy I spent countless hours looking at and through my AD&D books, but the Players Handbook was, to me, the most iconic.

Fantastic! Really takes me back.

Anyhow, welcome to R.gers and his Company of Heroes blog. I must profess that I am completely ignorant of this game but his blog looks like it has quite a bit of info on computer gaming.

Welcome Ambassador, I don't see a link to your blog but I see you also follow THW and Akula. Good stuff.

Welcome Scottsz, you seem to have several now defunct blogs about writing and developing adventure backgrounds. http://coldtextfiles.blogspot.com/ seems to still be up and looks interesting for D&D players. If you have a link to your webzine please let me know and I'll post it.

Welcome Big Lee of http://bigleesminipaintingblog.blogspot.com/ I am familiar with your work. Another top notch painter and member of the Posties Rejects.

And finally welcome Kriz of http://kriz-kreativemindz.blogspot.com/. I have no idea what GUNPLA is but that damaged building diorama is quite impressive. Good luck with it.

I have to rush off and meet the kids at the bus stop. Cheers!