Monday Night Mordheim; A Return to Normalcy

We're pleased to return you to your regularly scheduled blog!

Well, its been awhile, and I'm a bit rusty here. After much craziness and other things, now things have gotten back on track. It's been a heck of a couple of weeks. Been busy at work, school started back up, and tonight was the first Cub Scout meeting. 

See, there's the thing of it. All summer long I was late for work, I missed blog posts, and generally screwed around. I was missing the structure in my life that comes from my being Daddy. Kids didn't have to get ready in the morning, and they didn't have anything to do after I got home from work. For them it was heaven, nothing but X-box, Doctor Who, and going to the water park. For me, it was hell. I don't do well when there's no plan. I like having my days planned, my weeks mapped out, and my months booked months in advance. 

That's me, but to be honest, its one of the reasons that I do so well in maintaining games. I get into grooves. I shuck and jive. I think that scheduling is one of the most important thing for proper hobbying. Hobby-ing? Hobbieing? Hobbing? Whatever. I do what hobby when I can. Granted, lately that's not much. Got a bunch of other things going on. However, I now have that mind space available to me. It's important to me to keep that bit separate. 

The thing is people complain about not having time to hobby. Yes, we would all love an extra day of the week devoted to nothing but hobby. No school, no work, no social obligations, no anything but painting, terrain buildings, and gaming. That's not possible for most of us. Most of have those other things going on. 

So its important to grab hobby time any time you can. I know that a couple of my PCs in my Friday Night Skype D&D game are painting while we game. I would totally do that, if I weren't the DM and busier then a one legged tyranid in a jumping contest. I can grab a few hours to blog about the game I love on Monday Nights. I don't have anything else cluttering up the schedule. That's one of the reasons that I love Mordheim so much, it doesn't take much to hobby up. 

You can speed an hour or so knocking up stuff to play, and then like an hour and a half to play a single game. If you can arrange that about once a week or so, you will get more hobby done, and more time to play. It doesn't take the huge amount of time that WHFB or 40K does. Just a bit. Then if you get bored of what you are doing, you can easily switch. 

So it seems in my first week back, I wrote a wall of text about nothing in particular, but like I said, I'm getting back in the swing of things. Soon I'll be doing stuff more directly related to Mordheim, but I gotta get back in the groove. So I'll leave it at that, until next week!

Monday Night Mordheim: Thinking about New Guys

Well, its been almost two weeks since the fateful night when I took Mordheim to Boy Scouts. Tonight, I went to pick up Eldest Child from the Cub Scouts where he is a den chief (learning more about the intricacies of the BSA is one of the added benefits of this blog), I saw one of the other guys who had played Mordheim with us. He had been interested since he had inherited some Chaos (Both of the 40K and WHFB varities).

So I got around to talking about stuff that I like to tell new players. There's a bunch of stuff. So I wanted to think a bit about what I consider important.

1. The Location of the Good Game Store: There are four game stores that sell GW stuff in Pittsburgh. ONE of them is worth dropping cash at. Especially since the others don't have discounts, or a bits bin filled with used and old minis.

2. GW Paint: Been having a lot of conversations about this recently (most likely due to the new paint releases). I suggest regular craft paint-with a few exceptions. The metallics are better quality then just about any craft paint. The washes, are in my mind not bad and a good way to get used to them. Are GW the best? Probably not, I've heard good things about Vallejo and PP paints. However, price to quality to volume, I'm not seeing a big enough difference between GW's stuff and Applebarrell or Americana.

3. Paint Techniques: Luckily the new guy's mom knows her crafts. So I just dropped some terms, which she picked up on right away. Over brushing, dry brushing, blending, and base coat. I could spend a whole afternoon talking about that stuff along with color composition and army paint theory. I dig that stuff.

4. My favorite Places on the Net: Seriously, this is a resource that you are using RIGHT NOW. It wasn't available to me when I started, so I picked up techniques and tips and tricks much slower then I did. You can see all the links I sent to him in the Mordheim Links section of this website (plus a few more that I didn't send him).

Those are my top four things I like to impress on New Players. I thought this list would be longer. I really did. Which is why I thought it would be a good blog post. Unfortunitly, I'm a bit short on ideas lately. We've been busy at work, so all that time I spent thinking about cool stuff is going to mundane things like remembering everything that I am supposed to so that I can keep my job. Hence, short post, unless you guys can think of other things that are good to tell new people.

Monday Night Mordheim: Scouting Around

Middle Child readying the Orcs for a game at Boy Scouts.

Hello, and welcome back to another exciting installment of Monday Night Mordheim. As I mentioned last week, I was going to take some Mordheim to the Boy Scouts.

Now, to facilitate this plan, I packed up my terrain and the six warbands that I was taking and put them into my car. Went to work, and then on the way home from work before Scouts, I got into an accident. I'm fine, the other driver is fine. My car is still drivable, but the frame is bent, so its totaled. However, it delayed me from doing what I needed to do.

A ridiculously quick stop home to grab some stuff I had printed out for the kids, and I was back at Scouts. Now, to help each kid, I had printed up the turn reference sheet and a warband roster for each of them.

I had hoped that I had gotten a few more people then I did. My kids took their favorite warbands, and two guys joined us. Both of them are Eldest Child's best buds, so it really wasn't a surprise that they joined us. We had quite a few people stop and look at the tables and question us. I'm hoping that next time, I'll get some more people to join in, or have the kids able to stand on their own enough that I can answer more questions then just quick ones. The most common question asked was 'Are you playing Dungeons & Dragons', and for once I was able to honestly answer in the negative.

What I had not counted on was the fact that I have one table's worth of terrain, not two. Due to the shortened time constraints and lack of terrain, I set the kids up closer then normal. Instead of rolling for a scenario, I created one. It was a variation of the 'grab the treasure' type of scenario. I put an extra model on the top of a tower to act as the 'treasure chest'. Game would end when someone got the treasure chest off their board edge, or the someone routed.

It ended well. Someone got the treasure chest and the other guy got the rout in both games. Here's the breakdown:

Undead (Eldest Child) vs. Dwarves (Buddy #1)- Dwarves got the rout, and the undead (unsuprisingly) walked away with the treasure.

Orcs and Goblins (Middle Child) vs. Possessed (Buddy #2)- O&G got the rout and the Possessed walked away with the treasure.

The best of all possible worlds. Everyone got something out of this. The kids got to show off that they knew something, and the new guys got to learn in a way that was not discouraging. Great times.

Here's some pics of the event. Not much to show, since I wasn't too sure how people were about their kids and the internet. Some people are real stuck up about it, others are more cool. However, this isn't facebook or whatnot, its a blog. So I decided to err on the side of caution.

Monday Night Mordheim: Taking It to The Masses

At long last, I'm going to talk about the project that I've been working on since last Tuesday. I have gotten a wonderful opportunity, one that I've missed in the past, but now I am going to take advantage of.

For those of you who are unaware, my sons and I are very active with the local Boy Scout troop. Now, every few months, the troop has a 'free night' where everyone kinda hangs out and plays games and stuff. It's a good way for some of the guys who need rank conferences and such to do so without interrupting the regular meetings. Generally, I'll sit there and play some game that I have on hand, chess or yahtzee generally since I always have dice and a board.

This time though, when the 'free meeting' was announced, something clicked in my head. It was actually a piece that was written over on Frontline Gamer. Now, granted his post was more about introducing people who were already playing wargames to non-GW games. What I took away from it was to introduce people to table top wargaming in general. Get them started, and introduce them to Maulifaux and FoW later.

Why am I doing this? Well, to be honest, I like wargames. My kids enjoy wargames, and there are a number of other kids there that will probably enjoy wargames as well. I also feel that many wargames don't have a great introduction for people. They suffer a bit from the same problems that the Boy Scouts suffer from. There's a stigma against it, and we have to work uphill against it to get more people involved in something that they would actually enjoy and benefit from greatly. Unlike most things (Scouts included), I can't go set up a table in a local school inviting people come play. Well, I COULD but I would get some looks. So I have to pick and choose how and who I introduce wargames and RPGs to. I know a couple of the kids at Scouts have played Munchkin, Heroscape, and Lego Heroica (all gateways if you ask me). So I figure that Mordheim is right up thier alley, which is beneficial to getting their attention.

Refering back to the Frontline Gamer article, there were some great points that I took away from it for bringing Mordheim to the Scouts.

*I have six warbands. They are from various different types and styles, so there's a bit of something for everyone there. Horde warbands, shooty warbands, melee specialists, there's something there for everyone.
*I know the rules backwards, forwards, and inside out. My kids have a pretty firm grasp of the rules themselves, so if they each get a new opponent, that's a net gain of two new people. I'm really hoping for 4 new people, and I would walk around as referee teaching the game, rather then just playing. Whereas Maulifaux, while neat, I don't know anywhere near as well.
*Mordheim can be a short game that can be done in the hour and a half that we have during the Scout meeting. Even a small game of 40K or WHFB will take twice as long as that.
*Terrain, while I don't have the hugest or best looking terrain collection, I do have enough to put some boards down without looking too sparse.
*The Models, I have models at all stages. Some just glued together plastic/metal, some primed, some color blocked, some converted, and some painted to the best of my ability. Which is great to show the various steps of the hobby aspect of it.

Needless to say, I've been chugging along getting this all ready. I haven't been this excited about a single game in awhile. Which I guess is part of the point, enthusiasm is awesome. I can't imagine being one of the red shirts in a GW and trying to get excited about the same game every day. Now, in a FLGS there's a bunch of different games to get your motor running. Enthusiasm is infectious.

Scout Meetings are on Tuesday, so next week, I'll have some results or some humorous stories, or both. I doubt I'll have pics, since some people get kinda uptight about post pics of thier kids to random places (not that I can blame them). I might get some of the set ups and such, but probably not of the kids.

Monday Night Mordheim; Campaign Organization

Hello, and welcome to another installment of Monday Night Mordheim. I tend not to think too much about what I am going to post, unless I'm on a roll with something. I tend to look at what is happening around me and then riff off that.

Originally I was going to write an article about multiplayer, or about using Mordheim as a roleplaying substitute. However, after the events of tonight, I want to talk a bit more about the role of Campaign Organization.

I've talked a lot about campaigns here, and it seems that the subject is inexhaustible. So what brought me back to them tonight? Well, Boy Scouts. Those of you who know me, irl, know that my kids and I are involved in the Boy Scouts. Tonight after the Cub Scout meeting, there was a adult leader meeting. At this meeting, we worked on getting the Spaghetti Dinner. Lots of things were discussed, and I ended up getting the plum assignment of data entry of the mailing list to digital. Huzzah, at last the troop is entering the 20th century. Sitting around with the Scout Master, Assistant Scout Master, The Troop Council, and the other members of the adult leaders group, I realized something. It takes a lot of work to get something done right.

Like a Spaghetti Dinner, a good campaign requires a lot of forethought before it can be put into action. I've talked about the pre-campaign set-up, and the types of campaign that someone can run. What I've completly neglected to mention is the stuff that is required once the campaign starts up and gets going. So, yet again, I am going to hit up a bunch of different points, doing so in my favorite way possible; a numbered list.

1. Win-Lose-Draw Record. While each player in a campaign will probably keep this themself, but it pays to have someone keep an official track of it. That way, there is a neutral (or quasi-neutral) party keeping everyone honest.
2. Experience During a Match. Each scenario has ways to get additional experience beyond just the participation award. In most of them it is heroes that get additional experience for taking someone out of action, but in others models (heroes and henchmen) gain additional experience for completing certain tasks. This should all be recorded by another player who is not taking part in the battle that is going on.
3. The end of battle sequenece. This is especially important. I can't count the number of times that someone has lost their warband record sheet, and we had to rebuild from just the notes we had on file. Recording each post battle sequence can help this immensely. Also, it helps if you have some unscrupulous players (and we all know they are out there, but they obviously don't read this blog). Sometimes a surprise audit of the warband record sheet can catch those guys off guard, and keep 'em honest.
4. Game schedules. Depending on the type of game, this can resolve itself fairly easily, or become complex. A map campaign may have a set time for the campaign phase, and then each player schedules matches against opponents at their leisure. That's tough to handle, but it needs to be done.
5. Campaign Recorder. During the campaign, someone needs to keep track of what happens during the campaign. There are times that someone misses a meeting or a match, or doesn't catch what happened. The campaign record or some sort of telling of what happened during the game. This can be very important and very indepth, or it can be very open and vague. If you do something indepth, like battle reports, it can be a great benefit to the game. Especially if people like to use sneaky tricks. You can read up on them and see what worked and what didn't.
6. Space Maintainer. The janitor. Someone needs to clean up after the game is done, and it can be done in many different ways. Everyone splits the chore, last one out cleans up, owner of the space (if someone's house) cleans up, loser cleans house, the guy who didn't chip in for pizza. Something, anything. Leave the place you were in better then when you left it.
7. Liaison. This one is not really that important, unless you play in a FLGS, then it is VERY important. The Liaison should be someone there to help explain the game and promote it and invite more people to play in the game.

Well, that's enough for now. I can't take much more of this. Next week, I think I'll do something interesting.

Oh, and if you happen to be in Pittsburgh on November 12th, I can recommend a great place to get some spaghetti....