Happy Easter!

(Image from:  IBT--World's Oldest Hot Cross Buns)

Product Review: Ars Victor

In addition to Risk Battlefield Rogue, which I posted about yesterday, I also picked up Ars Victor (Limited Edition) for $18, after using my 20% off coupon, at Half Price Books.

I was impressed by the hefty weight of the game, and the solid feel of the box.

But I held off buying this game until I was about to leave the store.  The artwork reminded me of Warhammer 40K but drawn by Rich Burlew, creator of Order of the Stick.

It's one thing to read webcomic in stick figure style, but can be another issue entirely to play a game with such cartoonish graphics.

Despite my reservations, the geomorphic maps, playing pieces and tokens are made of thick and sturdy cardboard.  The rules are written in large print, with plenty of illustrated examples; which is great for young players--or older ones with aging eyesight.

Other selling points about the game are that it can be played in about an hour, and can serve as a great introductory game for youngsters (without traumatizing them with the "...grim darkness of the far future...").

The images on the playing pieces resemble kid-friendly versions of the Eldar, the Imperial Guard (aka Astra Militarum) and mutants.

Ars Victor (Latin-ish for "Art of Victory/Winning") is highly rated on both Boardgame Geek and Amazon.com.

Play Unplugged has a thorough review as does Boardgame Geek, along with an entertaining tutorial on YouTube produced by the Ars Victor creators and a video review by Marcowargamer.

Product Review: Risk--Battlefield Rogue

A couple weeks ago, I had a 20% off coupon from Half Price Books, and the time off to travel to the nearest store.

One of the games that caught my eye was Risk Battlefield Rogue.  I never heard of, let alone played, Battlefield 4, which was the inspiration for this tabletop version.  Nor did I do any research into either game since I had no idea what I'd find at Half Price Books until I got there.

The store was charging $13.99 for the game, and now that I've had a chance to examine it, I feel I paid too much.

Debuting with little or no marketing fanfare, the game was quietly distributed and sold through Target for $30 back in 2013.  You can now get it for $5.00--$8.00 on Boardgame Geek's Marketplace, but you'll have to pay for shipping and handling as well.  So I don't think I paid that much more than anyone else, unless they find it at a garage sale.

Risk Battlefield Rogue has the worst rating of any item I've seen offered on Amazon.com:  An average of 2.8 out of 5 stars, with 37% of the ratings being 1-star.

The biggest complaints centered on the following:

1. The flimsy cardboard map sections and cards (the plastic soldiers were considered good).

2. Dice requiring stickers to be placed on them.

3. Including "Risk" in the title was a blatant marketing ploy, since the game bears no resemblance to other Risk games.

4. Artwork that looks like 80s vintage computer graphics.

5. The poorly written and confusing rules.

(Image from:  Boardgame Geek)

And speaking of rules:  When I got home, I used copy my game didn't have any.  Fortunately, it was easy for me to find a PDF version that I downloaded and printed.

Despite all the negative reviews there are a few players who like the game, especially ones who've played Battlefield 4, and/or have an "it is what it is" attitude.

I'll probably keep the game for a while, until I actually play it and the session is as bad as the 1-star reviewers say it is.

Spring Surprise

(Image of Raider-class corvette on Wookiepedia)

Have you ever forgotten, or misplaced something, and when you re-discover it, you're filled with a euphoric Christmas-morning feeling?

That happened to me yesterday when a large package arrived that I wasn't expecting.

It was from The Miniature Market that I completely forgot about.

Inside the well-insulated box were--

--an imperial raider 

(Image from:  X-Wing Miniatures Wiki)

--the Millennium Falcon

(Image from:  Boardgame Geek)

--and Battlefield in a Box's Asteroids.

(Image from:  Gale Force 9)

For the past several days I've been on-and-off duty, having to fill-in for coworkers who were sick, or who's children were ill.

So I don't have the time at the moment unpack my new acquisitions, let alone posting a full Product Review.

While I'm concerned about my memory lapse, this "unexpected" delivery has done much to brighten my mood for the long days and nights at work.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

(Image found on Flickr)

Book Review: The World of Jack Aubrey

If you're looking for a short reference book on the setting of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin Series, then The World of Jack Aubrey may fit the bill. 

I can't remember when, or where I bought this, probably at Half Price Books.

After receiving my latest shipment of Sails of Glory, I was in the mood for an Age-of-Sail book I could easily read while on a cardio machine at the gym.

The World of Jack Aubrey is nicely illustrated, contains some informative charts, and provides a nice overview of life in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.  Other navies and even pirates are given a paragraph's-length examination. 

If there's any shortcoming about this book it's--well-- it's short.  Weighing-in at 96 illustrated pages, it took me just over two hours to finish.  Some of the chapters end rather abruptly.  I noticed a couple of typos, while one of the 3-star raters on Amazon.com discovered even more.

The World of Jack Aubrey is a nice introductory, Age-of-Sail reference book that doesn't take up too much room on your book shelf, and is handy to have at your side while reading.

The book earned an average of 3.9 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com.  Even the readers who liked it, commented on the thin amount of material there is between the front and back covers.

While I liked The World of Jack Aubrey, and plan on keeping it, I'd have to go elsewhere for more in-depth material.  So I give it 3-stars.

Book Review: Shadow Knights

Nearly six years ago, Simon & Schuster started a line of books called Pulp History.  The intent was to introduce readers to some of the past's most thrilling stories.

And what could be more thrilling than British agents infiltrating Nazi-occupied Europe?

Shadow Knights: The Secret War Against Hitler is an illustrated book about some of the men and women of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE). 

While the book touches on various aspects of SOE's existence, the focus rests on the exploits of Harry Ree, Noor Inayat Khan, and the team of Norwegians responsible for the destruction of Germany's heavy water production.

In addition to stirring accounts of survival, betrayal, capture and the occasional triumph; Shadow Knights is lavishly illustrated with maps, sidebar notes, while artist Jeffrey Smith's splash pages bring the characters to life.

I give this book a solid four-star rating, leaning more towards work of entertainment than an in-depth historical analysis of irregular warfare waged against Nazi Germany.  For the sake of telling stories of derring do, Shadow Knights "pulps over" many aspects of World War II, outside the scope of SOE's operations. 
The book has a 4.5-star rating out of 5 on Amazon.com.

Unfortunately, Simon & Schuster's Pulp History fizzled out after releasing only two books, the second being, Devil Dog: The Amazing True Story of the Man Who Saved America.

Both books can be found in used book stores or through Amazon.com.

New Logo for Stern Rake Studio

(The image I settled on--for now)

I have two announcements.

First, I purchased a couple of domain names, "Stern Rake Studio dot Com" and "Stern Rake Studio dot Net" through 1 & 1.  It will be a while for the Stern Rake Studio website to be up & running.  I'll have to construct it, or more than likely, have someone help me build it.

While I'm happy with my purchase, I'll probably end up contacting 1 & 1's customer service.  In my zeal to obtain the domain name, I didn't proofread my purchase as thoroughly as I should have.  The "dot com" domain will be listed as "stern-rake-studio,"  while the "dot net" domain will be "sternrakestudio."

I'd like the dot com to be all one word, like the dot net one is.  I decided to purchase the dot net in addition to the dot com, to thwart anyone else from using the Stern Rake Studio name and possibly confusing any viewers.

Of course, 1 & 1, along with every other domain company attempts to get customers to monopolize every possible permutation of their chosen domain name as possible.  I figured grabbing the dot net name would be enough.  I don't feel the need to corner the Stern Rake Studio market.

At least not yet.

The second announcement is that I've changed the logo to Stern Rake Studio.

Since I'll have a bona fide website (eventually), I thought I should have my own logo instead of hijacking one off the internet, even if the image is public domain.

I staged a hypothetical fight between HMS Orpheus and the Carmagnole, from my Sails of Glory collection, and took over 185 pictures using my old Panasonic Lumix and my new Nikon CoolPix cameras.  The reason I snapped so many pictures is because it was a partly cloudy day and I made several setting changes on my camera, along with turning interior lights on and off.

After deleting all the blurry images, I played around with the color and lighting on each photo using the Windows Paint program and Paint.Net.  Then I used Paint.Net's ink sketch program to make it look like I drew the images.

I wanted to use this image...

...of HMS Orpheus conducting a stern rake maneuver against Carmagnole with "guns blasing," thanks to the Windows Paint program.  Unfortunately, when I uploaded this on to Blogger, the only image I got was of Carmagnole's bowsprit and foremast.

Here's another image I would have liked to use:

I even took "reverse image" photos, but none of them came out as well as I wanted.  The Carmagnole's hull was too dark in all of them, which made it hard to spot the ship's gun ports.

I also took pictures using a grey cotton ball to represent Orpheus' cannon belching smoke.  I would have used the Windows Paint program to make the image more "realistic," but I didn't like the way the cotton ball obscured the details of HMS Orpheus.

For now, I've settled on the current header picture for this blog.  I plan on coming up with a better image--hopefully sooner, rather than later.

In the meantime, among the various photos I do like, I made images with "Stern Rake Studio" imprinted on them using various fonts.  These will be used as logos for future webcomics and YouTube videos.

I'm sure I'll be making more improvements in the future.

Product Review: Warhammer 40K Roleplay--Only War

(WH40K RPG Only War Core Rulebook)

Despite my mixed-feelings and misgivings about Warhammer 40,000 (WH40K), I amassed a collection of 6th Edition Codexes (book supplements, each focusing on a specific faction), along with the core rule book. 

Two factors helped me accomplish this--

--First, WH40K is now in it's 7th Edition.
--And second, Half Price Books put earlier edition material on the Clearance Rack.

Shortly afterwards, I discovered many of the WH40K role playing game (RPG) material was being sold at a discount by some on-line stores.  (Fantasy Flight Games began publishing WH40K RPG material in early 2008).

With so much material to choose from, but with limited shelf space, I focused on the types of RPG adventures that interested me the most:  Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

In the extraordinarily grim setting of the 41st Millennium, you don't get any more ordinary than being a soldier in the Imperial Guard.  Just about everything in the galaxy is stronger, tougher, faster and even smarter than mere human beings.

The WH40K RPG system, uses one, or two ten-sided dice (1d10, or 2d10--rolled as a percentile) to resolve actions from shooting enemies of the Emperor, to conducting repairs.  Some of the Player Characters' (PCs') nine characteristics are similar to the stats used in the WH40K wargame.

The game mechanics are similar to other RPG systems, but using percentile dice helps heroes "nickel & dime" as many advantages as possible when attempting to resolve an action. Every 10% above the minimum necessary dice roll constitutes a "level of success," resulting in extra benefits.  Likewise, every 10% below the minimum results in a "level of failure," which will most likely have dire consequences.

Two unique features of Only War are that players don't just "roll-up" their characters. 

First, it is decided, either by the Gamemaster (GM), or by the GM and players, on what type of regiment they're serving in.  That is, before PCs are created, the regiment and its commanding officer are rolled-up. 

Second, the players form a squad within this regiment.  In order to fill out the ranks--and to absorb casualties--players roll-up a comrade.  This companion is an non-player character (NPC) who'll follow reasonable orders from the PC, and can assist with resolving actions.

The acquisition of weapons and equipment is also different from other RPGs.  Since PCs are members of a military unit, they don't have to buy equipment.  Instead weapons and equipment are issued.

But herein lies the problem:  PCs are subject to byzantine whims of the Adeptes Munitorum.  Players may have to make "Logistics Tests" in order to acquire additional weapons (or ones of better quality), and even replacement comrades.  So it pays to devote some points to non-combat skills and talents.

Aesthetically, the Only War core rulebook is filled with artwork that evokes the grim setting of the 41st Millennium.  My only issue with this product is there are a considerable number of syntax errors and the book could have benefited from additional editing.  I also found the arcane looking map of the Calixis Sector, found inside the front and back covers, hard to understand.  Easier to follow maps are available on-line by doing a Google-Search.

Only War garnered an average 4.7 out of 5 stars by reviewers on Amazon.com.

For further reading:

If you're interested in an entertaining and snarky review of Only War, check out 1d4chan.

For the writers among you, Only War earned an extensive and humorous entry on TV Tropes.

Some Supplement Books:

In addition to the Gamemaster's Kit, I also purchased the following "splatbooks," as the folks at 1d4chan call them.

1. Hammer of the Emperor:

(Hammer of the Emperor Supplement)

This supplement provides additional material for soldiers.

2. Shield of Humanity:

(Shield of Humanity Supplement)

A supplement for support personnel, ranging from technicians to priests.  This book had the most syntax errors of any of the Only War material I purchased.  It seemed like every handful of pages I'd run across one or more grammatical errors.  Not misspellings, just words that didn't fit the sentence they were placed in.

3. Enemies of the Imperium:

(Enemies of the Imperium Supplement)

An extensive look at the bad guys an Imperial Guard squad may have to contend with in the Calixis Sector; along with a chapter on running mass-battles, acquiring veteran skills and medals.

The most-likely enemies PCs may face are: The  Severan Dominate, Orks of WAAAGH! Grimtoof, the Children of the Thorns Kabal, and a warband of Chaos Space Marines

I haven't purchased any of the adventure "splatbooks."  Many other WH40K and Warhammer Fantasy "splatbooks" are available for a discount, even clearance, at The Miniature Market.

Webcomic Chapter 15 Posted

Chapter 15 (pages 438-479) of Breakout from Bongolaan is now available.

For this chapter's theme song I chose Love & Loss, by Two Steps from Hell.

I thought this song, which I found rather quickly, fit the "big reveal" made my one of the characters in this story.

The way I have the rest of the story plotted-out, there's eight chapters left.  However, it seems like nearly all my previous chapters end up multiplying into two or three scenes.  So for now, let's just say there's eight more plot-points to go.

I'm still in the process of learning about my new Nikon CoolPix P530 camera.  I hope to start using it by the time I start taking pictures for Chapter 16.

In the meantime, I  hope you enjoy the latest chapter.

Product Review: Sails of Glory

(Sails of Glory core rule set)

I've loved playing Age-of-Sail games ever since my brother brought home Wooden Ships & Iron Men, back when we were pre-teens.  While all the boardgames were certainly fun, I yearned to play similar table top battles with miniatures.  GHQ has had a line of 1/1200 scale Napoleonic Micronauts available for years.

However, I never invested in them because painting such figures was--and still is--a daunting task for me.  Fortunately, Ares Games alleviated the painting chore for me with their Sails of Glory game.

Of course, I didn't just buy the core rule set, which consists of two French and two British warships (a ship-of-the-line and a frigate each). 

Thanks to The Miniature Market I was able to afford over a dozen ship packs, and accessories, not to mention qualifying for free shipping over the course of two or three orders.

The supplemental packs feature ships from America, Britain, France and Spain.  In addition to the ship miniature, each pack contains a segmented cardstock ship log (for tracking the ship's status during battle), a ship card (with firing diagram and ship name), and a small pack of maneuver cards.

Here's my Sails of Glory order of battle (links are to the products available from The Miniature Market, which gives a short bio of each ship):

1. The 13 Colonies/America--

(American ships)

--Thorn/USS Atlanta
--USS Constitution

2. Great Britain--

(Ships of the Royal Navy)

--HMS Sybille/Amelia
--HMS Swan/Fairy
--HMS Cleopatra/Iphigenia
--HMS Orpheus/Amphion
--HMS Concorde/Unite

3. France--

(French Ships)

--Proserpine/Dryade
--Alligator/Le Fortune
--Embuscade/Succes
--Carmagnole/Sibylle

4. Spain--

(Spanish ships)

--Sirena/Ifegnia
--Argonauta/Heroe

Board Game Geek has a complete list of ships and accessories.

Speaking of Accessories, I picked out the following--

(Some of the game accessories available)

--Additional Counters
--Coastal Batteries Terrain Pack
--Coast and Shoals Terrain Pack (two of these, actually)
--Damage Counter Bag

The pre-painted, wargame-quality ship figures are made of plastic and are mounted on thick plastic bases, which measure about 2" x 3" x 1/2".  Each base contains a clear cover to hold the ship card in place.

Most models are dual-named with some possible adjustments to their game statistics.  For example, this British frigate can put to sea as HMS Orpheus...

...HMS Amphion.  Or both can put to sea, if you buy two identical ship packs.

I haven't played the game yet, but the size of the miniatures and other components in Sails of Glory strikes me as being best suited for single-ship battles, or actions between small squadrons. 

Now this doesn't mean fleet actions aren't possible.  Last year, in the waning hours of our regional Enfilade convention, several gamers were playing out what I think was the Glorious First of June on an extra-long table.

I'm happy that I've finally obtained some Age of Sail miniatures.  I haven't acquired every ship in the Sails of Glory line--yet.  Right now I'm focusing on frigates and sloops of war (often called corvettes by the French and Spanish).  I only have one, or two ships of the line from each nation, except America, although the USS Constitution (Wikipedia link) comes pretty darn close.

About the only issue I have at this time with Sails of Glory is an aesthetic one.  The bases used to mount the ships are thick and sturdy.  Ship miniatures are held in place by a peg found on the underside of the ship's hull.

While the ship bases are highly functional, they don't blend-in well with the surrounding seascape.

So I came up with a cunning plan.  I bought two extra frigates, HMS Orpheus and the Prosperine, at The Game Matrix.  When I brought them home, I snipped off the tabs and then took some staged photos.

Here's one of HMS Orpheus:

I love how the ship looks, especially when place on the Ocean F.A.T. Mat that I bought several months ago.  I look forward to playing Sails of Glory and using any waterline versions of ships in my after action reviews.

 

A few words of caution are in order when making "waterline" versions of these ships:

 

First and foremost, BE CAREFUL when handling the ships.  The hard plastic makes them rather fragile.  When snipping off the tab of HMS Orpheus, I broke off part of the bowsprit.  Fortunately, it broke in a spot that was easy for me to jury rig it back together with a dab of super glue.

 

Second, the ships are very light, and without the base they easily tip over.  This is okay if you're thinking "cinematically" like I do and are taking staged photos.  But if you plan on using waterline versions in a wargame you may want to find some thin miniatures bases, or some other thin strips of metal, and superglue them to the undersides of each ship.  If the metal strips are wider than the ship's hull, it may help to paint them in appropriate ocean colors.

 

Finally, the undersides of a ship's hull may not be completely flat.  In this case, sanding the underside or scraping it with an exacto knife may be necessary to keep a ship from listing.