New Beginnings

A few months ago a couple of Kickstarters were finally fulfilled, I made several secondary market purchases, and bought into a few new games. I've been drowning in rules sets, minis, and am still looking forward to things that are on the way. Here's what I've been up to and what I'm anxiously awaiting!

First up, let's go over the new stuff I've picked up.

• Heavy Gear Blitz - War for Terra Nova Kickstarter
• Dropfleet Commander Kickstarter
• Halo Ground Command starter
• Blood Bowl
• Battletech Introductory Starter
• Shadow War Armageddon

For Heavy Gear Blitz, I jumped in on the Kickstarter and picked up a few extras to ensure I can get up to four gamers playing at the same time. I already had the previous starter (the one that came with six Gears) and had run a few demos at my LGS. The couple of people I demo'd it for enjoyed it but it has already been a few years since then. I was hoping that with the success and popularity of the Kickstarter that a few people would have made the plunge with me but that was not the case. I have a ton of minis I have to build but I got lucky and picked up all the new Badlands Rocks sets that GF9 put out recently (to go with the other couple of sets I had) so I actually have some decent terrain for it when I get the minis together.

I basically did the same thing for Dropfleet Commander, Hawk Wargames' new fleet-scale miniatures game set in the same universe as Dropzone Commander. This time I had a few guys in my gaming club say they were doing the Kickstarter as well but I'm finding with these that people lose interest very quickly and by the time their stuff arrives the hype is long gone. So, I've got four decent-sized fleets on sprue sitting around waiting to be clipped, cleaned and assembled. Probably won't happen.

With Halo Ground Command I knew I'd be the only person getting this so this is all I grabbed. I mainly fell in love with the idea of running a con-style game using this set (and maybe a few extra models) to simulate the level "The Silent Cartographer" from the first Halo if nothing else. I assembled most of the infantry so far but kind of got sidetracked when I started messing with the building terrain it included.

I've always been interested in Blood Bowl but never had the opportunity to play it. Over the years there have been people in various clubs I've been a part of (or run) that had the game but I was always enthralled in standard games of 40k or Apocalypse Mega-Battles. Thankfully with the new release I was able to jump in by picking up a starter and now I have all four teams they've released thus far and all their dice. I've only played a couple games but I noticed skill has very little to do with this version (if not all versions) as the dice dictate everything and are very swingy (more-so than other GW games). I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of that but again I don't have very many games under my belt of this so the jury's still out.

This was a fun, simple little purchase that is a complete game ready to play out of the box. I've played a few very small introductory games of this years ago and I thought it was pretty cool, so I figured having this newer core set would be a fine addition to my suddenly overflowing collection of games.

Now, before you crack your knuckles and write up a huge post about how I'm a hypocrite, I'm not a hypocrite. I am not a huge fan of Age of Sigmar; it destroyed much of what I loved about the Warhammer Fantasy IP and substituted rank-and-file regimental combat and tactics with some silly abilities and over-simplified mechanics. That being said, I had the models lying around, the rules were free, and I'm not going to tell people at my LGS what they can and can't play. I played a few games of it recently and though my poor Dark Elves have been shattered into five sub-par factions with sub-par rules, my Lizardmen (Seraphon) are pretty solid. I have been keeping an eye on the new factions and books coming out and I'm pretty excited for the Kharadron Overlords.

I know two people in my group are planning on picking them up already, so unfortunately it looks like I'll have to watch them have fun with AoS Squats.

Next up is Shadow War Armageddon, the successor to Necromunda. Just like Blood Bowl I never had the opportunity to play despite several people in the clubs I was a part of over the years having copies of the game. On the night of release our club dove right in and two of us picked up boxed sets, the store got in the league kit, and one of our local guys had an extra rulebook of his own. We had four games going (eight players) and it was a blast. We're probably going to start up the campaign here shortly because we had a huge interest in it and the excitement for it is likely as high as it will ever get.

And that brings me back to Infinity. I've been trying to keep up with their releases and announcements and more recently I've been getting the itch again, so I've pulled out my Nomads, figured out a better way to transport them, and am ready to use Shadow War Armageddon as a way to sneakily get people interested (or re-kindle their interest) in Infinity. We have a few guys who've had models for a while and a few guys who just picked some up, so with some luck I might be able to get a game night or two out of it for my efforts.

I know that's just a brief blurb for each game but this is more of an update as to what I've been up to and it barely scratches the surface (I've played in a tournament with my Tau and took 2nd, picked up the Nintendo Switch and have become addicted to Breath of the Wild, gotten a ton of new and old video games, etc). I'll try to post more often so stay tuned to more info on the goings-on at my LGS!