This one’s for Martin and Bradford: Yes, the Car Wars Compendium is finally available again, as a us$15 PDF from Steve Jackson Games. It actually came out a fortnight ago, but I don’t normally pay that much attention to SJG as most of their games I don’t play. (I made an exception for Revolution!, a recent boardgame, but that’s because it arrived in Good Games Ballarat … Continue reading Car Wars Compendium – PDF
Well, I now have it: The Gathering Storm, book 12 of the Wheel of Time, and the third-last volume in the tale. The book was partly written by Robert Jordan, and completed by Brandon Sanderson. Over (hopefully) the next two years, the remainder of the tale will be released and we will finally have the Wheel of Time in its entirety. It’s been a long … Continue reading The Gathering Storm – The Wheel of Time
Ooh… http://battletech.catalystgamelabs.com/2009/10/23/catalyst-game-labs-offers-premium-quality-plastic-miniatures/ http://www.camospecs.com/Article.asp?FictionID=27 “Catalyst is pleased to release the first two premium-quality plastic miniatures for sale through www.battlecorps.com/catalog: the Thor and Loki Clan OmniMechs from Technical Readout: 3050 Upgrade. “These extremely high-quality miniatures are the result of a match-up between Catalyst Game Labs’ insatiable desire to continue the explosive re-birth of BattleTech popularity with Ghost Studios, a manufacturer at the cutting edge of technology utilizing a seamless all-digital process from conception to … Continue reading Plastic premium BattleTech figures
There’s a game in the Alea Big Box range called Chinatown. It’s recently been reprinted by Z-Man games. The game is a fairly simple one: you trade with the other players to get sets of buildings which you then construct on the map. The more sets of similar buildings you have, the more income you make. What struck me about the game was how few rules … Continue reading Elegance and the Development of Game Systems
I spent a fair bit of the weekend watching season 1 of Fringe, which I recently acquired on DVD. Fringe is a series that didn’t get much of a chance on Channel 9 in Australia before it wandered on to parts unknown. This isn’t entirely surprising, because the first few episodes of Fringe aren’t really very good. They feel slow, which is a cardinal sin … Continue reading Fringe, season 1
Tonight, I got to play Space Hulk for the first time in several years. Well, in over a decade. I never actually played the game much – one or two games at most – but I broke down and bought the recent Games Workshop rerelease of the game. Randy played the Genestealers (appropriately, his username on BGG is genesteeler), and I played the marines. How … Continue reading Playing Space Hulk 3e
I probably should have spent this weekend at the Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix in Melbourne. Instead, I spent it playing games up in Ballarat. I had a fantastic weekend – two D&D sessions, and a lot of boardgames, but, on the other hand, I didn’t get to see Daniel place 52nd in the Grand Prix (and win $200). That’s 52nd out of slightly over … Continue reading A Nice Weekend – Magic, Martian Rails, D&D and Space Hulk
Well, my acquisition of BattleTech stuff continues apace. Arriving today… Notice anything about it? You probably don’t. It’s subtle. Here’s the previous one in the series: Do you see it now? Yes, it’s no longer “Classic” BattleTech; it’s just BattleTech again. BattleTech Strategic Operations offers the following options to BattleTech games: A new abstract air-to-air combat system (and air-to-ground), which means a much easier integration of … Continue reading New BattleTech stuff
I finally managed to get around to reading The Light of Burning Shadows by Chris Evans on the trip to Melbourne on Thursday. Yes, a book I ordered especially in from Amazon/America because I wasn’t sure if I could get it yet in Ballarat, which had been sitting on my bedside table for a couple of weeks as I kept finding myself otherwise occupied. Go figure. … Continue reading The Light of Burning Shadows – a review
Eep. I’ve just had one of those action-packed weekends that really had just a bit too much action. Thursday, I went down to Melbourne to see my brother and his new house. He’s bought a small house in Hawthorn, where he is living with his wife and their two dogs. The weather was mostly fine – one pretty bad rain shower as I was leaving … Continue reading A big weekend
