RPG & WARGAME NEWSLETTER #88
December 16, 2024
Greetings, Gamers!
Two weeks until Christmas. My wife has a hard time shopping for me when it comes to my gaming hobby, so I help her out by ordering what I want and then telling her how to divvy it up between her and my boys. This year, I managed to grab a game I’ve been wanting for a long time — Andromeda’s Edge. I wasn’t able to get a copy from a store in California a while back, so I just gave up. But… a recent visit to HobbyTown in Atlanta surprised me “When, what to my wondering eyes should appear” the game PLUS two Kickstarter expansions for it! WOO! I don’t usually ask for much for Christmas, so this was perfect… something to play (solo) on Christmas Day! WOO! My wife was happy, too.
A friend of mine did send me a copy of the new 2-player introductory box for Infinity, a sci-fi skirmish wargame. I’ve never played it, but I’m definitely interested. The rulebook is 192 pages, so I better get to reading… and painting. Lots to do.
Okay… let’s get to the fun stuff!
RPGs
If you’ve ever wanted to get into the new Star Trek Adventures (RPG) from Modiphius, now may be the time. I love Starter Sets, and Modiphius is now taking pre-orders for the STA Starter Box here. For 3-7 players, here’s the box contents:
RULES BOOKLET: A 48-page booklet providing an overview of the 2d20 game system adapted for Star Trek Adventures, for use with the included campaign.
CAMPAIGN BOOKLET: A 60-page booklet containing the epic, three-part campaign “Infinite Combinations,” which guides you through the rules as you play so you can begin exploring the Galaxy straight out of the box.
SHIP SHEET and CHARACTER SHEETS: A statistics sheet for the Constitution-class U.S.S. Challenger and seven player character sheets, with rules references on the backs.
REFERENCE SHEETS: Four double-sided rules reference sheets.
DICE: Five twenty-sided dice (d20s) in a unique color only available in this Starter Set.
TOKENS: Six Momentum tokens for each of six different civilizations (i.e., 36 total Momentum tokens), 36 Threat tokens on the reverse side of the Momentum tokens, and 9 Determination tokens.
WARGAMING
Uncle Atom released a video recently discussing what some believe to be a glut of wargames. I tend to side with Uncle Atom that if we were all stuck with just one wargame such as 40k and no innovation, we’d be bored out of our mind, the prices would skyrocket (way higher than their current high price), and our community would slowly shrink. You can watch the video below, and it’s certainly something to think about. For me, I like finding new wargames, even if I only play them once or twice. Every now and then, however, I stumble upon a game that I want to just keep playing… and I never would have found them if I hadn’t looked for other games to play.
Whether you want more or fewer wargames on the market, I don’t think we’re going to see any shrinking of new ones any time soon. Kickstarter and YouTube have allowed more people to find what they want, very specifically, with just a few search terms. There are so many niche games that you might not like… but someone apparently does. Here’s to many more wargame releases in 2025!
TERRAIN
If you don’t have a 3D printer and are interested in grabbing some pre-painted 3D printed terrain, I’m going to point you to a friend of mine who has started a new side-business. Bryan is the owner/operator of Yellahammer Tabletop Craft — he sells resin printed minis and FDM-printed terrain. I’m going to put some images here for you to check out, and if you’re interested in buying some, you can contact Bryan at yhtcrafts@gmail.com or via his Facebook Group here. Take a look at that blue-roof chapel!
CROWDSOURCING
I’m not sure if I’m going to back this or not, but I have almost a month to decide on the Legends of Darkshire setting. That said, it’s a very impressive bit of 3D printed terrain. I’m particularly interested in it for Frostgrave - I think it will look great painted up and covered in snow. It also comes with a scatter option meaning you don’t have to print the groundwork. That’s what grabbed my attention. I think this would look great on a 3x3 table, too. If you want more info, click here.
YOUTUBE
I’m a big fan of Four Against Darkness, a solo dungeon crawler. I play it all the time, and I’m always looking for ways to make my games better. This video below offers up some interesting ideas that I’m going to try for organization and may be of use to other 4AD players.
LOVECRAFT MYTHOS
Not much information to share with you (yet), but there’s a new Call of Cthulhu adventure called Call of the Sea: The Everhart Expedition coming from Shadowlands Games. It looks like an adventure with lots of props, too! It’s apparently based on an old videogame called Call of the Sea (that I’m not familiar with). From the scenario’s description: Join the Everhart Expedition as Norah Everhart and her husband and archaeologist Harry, Dr. DeWitt, mechanic Frank, journalist Cassandra and Hollywood actor Roy. Cross the world in search of a cure for Norah’s deadly and strange disease. Enjoy the special personal dimension of each investigator -their relationships, plot hooks and agendas encourage interaction and add flavor to the role-playing experience, acting as an organic seed of scenes.
You can sign up to get notified about its release here. No date yet.
GASLANDS VEHICLE OF THE WEEK
I’ve never made a VW Bug battle vehicle for Gaslands, but this one has me realizing I missed an opportunity. I love the armor applied everywhere, and you’ve gotta imagine the deafening sound for the driver when that gun starts spinning…
MECH OF THE WEEK
With the *(hopefully) soon release of Battletech Aces and the solo rules it provides, I’m really wanting to get my mechs painted up over the holiday. I’ve been looking at a lot of different color schemes, and although I’m not going with purple, I do like the shading effect on the ones below (from Sam Ling).
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Christmas orders (from my laser shop) tend to wind down as most people realize anything they order is unlikely to arrive in time, so I’m finding myself with plenty of time to read some rulebooks, paint some minis and terrain, and prepare for the new year. I hope all of you get a chance to play a game or two or ten over the holidays, and I while I’ll have a newsletter to release on the 23rd, it may be slightly shorter. Not certain yet, but… I will definitely see you next Monday.
Jim, The Tabletop Engineer
TO MY SUBSCRIBERS
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The YouTube Channel name is The Tabletop Engineer Plays
I was looking for a particular STL yesterday and while I didn't find it, I found a whole bunch of other fascinating designs that you could just tell somebody made for the purpose of a new (or at least, unusual) type of game. I even found STLs that encompassed entire new games, like one where you built a micro scale city and fought over it with microscale kaiju, and the rules were in the description. All of this made me realize that we were probably about to enter a new golden age of miniature gaming that has nothing to do with big or even medium sized publishers, a true return to hobbyist roots. 'Too many options' is a complaint of cons00mers who need to be told how to have fun.
I looked into Andromeda's Edge and saw the full set of game components and my brain went into lock down. It seems like a cool idea, but too many fiddly bits. I hope you plan to bring this to the table and do a video or two on it.