John Zeitler

I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that, unless I spend more or less every non-working waking moment from here to the end of the year gaming, I won’t come anywhere near my stated goal of fifty game clears this year. In all honesty this has been a bad year in terms of gaming for me; not nearly as bad as last year, but then again I had sort of an excuse. This year I even made an effort to give myself extra gaming time, via the bus plan, and it still fell apart. So, don’t think for a moment that I hid a game clear notice or three from you over the course of September. I didn’t. Honest.

I’m also fairly confident that my plan to double-up my Gamerscore for the third year running is doomed to failure. Over five months I’ve only gained 900 points or so, meaning that in order to hit the double-up goal I need another 8500 in three months. Again, I’m not that broken up about it.

What have I been doing while I prepare to move? Well, reading a lot more RPG manuals. Even if I never get to play any of them, I’m still fascinated by the lore and the stories presented, and I’m hoping that soon I’ll be able to start up a D&D campaign. I’d tried doing so once before, and while it started out well, I didn’t have the time or focus needed to both compose and playtest a whole campaign before the session. This time I’ll likely be using pre-made modules and letting the role-playing tell the story, rather than the locations.

I’ve also come across a couple of board games that interested me, namely Lords of Vegas and Founding Fathers. Vegas seems a little complex, but a lot of fun, while Founding Fathers was borne of seeing a couple others play it and my own interest in politics after the whole West Wing thing. Incan Gold was also reprinted recently, so I grabbed that, as well– it’s a hell of a lot of fun, and it’s fast, too.

I’d packed away my consoles and games for them a long time ago; only the Wii and the 360 stayed active until last week. They’re both in storage right now, and so I only have the handhelds and the PC available should I desire video games. I’ve been tinkering with Team Fortress 2 off and on here the past few days, and Left 4 Dead 2 is downloading as we speak, but I’m also very happy with how Final Fantasy XIV has turned out. Not just that it runs well on my computer, which it does, but that it’s a great game in its own right. I’m sure other, older games have allowed crafting as a “main” career path through the game’s story, but I’m not sure how many of them basically made it so easy to actually raise your crafting skills without grinding zillions of monsters to buy expensive crafting materials. The levequest system basically provides you with materials and recipes needed, and you can repeat them as needed. More to the point, you actually get experience for doing so– not just skill points, but real honest-to-god XP. So it’s a great way to try something different without completely stalling advancement.

Oh, and the death penalty is no longer as draconian as it was in FF11; no experience loss or level-downs here. The end result is basically that exploration is encouraged, and mistakes are forgiven, instead of paranoia being rewarded and misfortune being punished. Come the change of the year I think I’ll be getting a PC to set up as a dedicated gaming box, instead of dual-booting Mahoro or the Stellvia.

Finally, just as an interesting aside, I may have a rather alarming personal project lined up for 2011: I might wind up strictly limiting the video game purchases, new and Reclamatory, to one or two a month for the year. Don’t hold me to it yet, and I’ll be laying out some very specific exceptions to this rule (chief among them Mega Man Legends 3 if you believe it’ll be out in ’11), but I think it’s worth taking a break on the collection front for a year and putting the resources towards a greater good. (Which reminds me that the rule would also limit me to a single miniature item per week, and a single battleforce box or other big-ticket box each month; paints and other consumable supplies wouldn’t count.) Again, just a thought.

Ciao, folks. Tomorrow’s entry may be late, just so you’re aware.

I was supposed to take part in a pretty interesting Guard vs. Orks mission tonight after work.

None of the Orks players showed up.

Kinda frustrated now.

Late post, and for that I apologize. However this weekend is going to be full of words deferred as I work to finish up the next chapter of Frangible Time and document the rather humiliating defeats I just suffered tonight at the tables of war. Once the campaign is over I’ll collect the stories and see about putting them up as a coherent tale for you folks.

Ciao, boys and girls.

So I’m off to bed early, in the midst of a rainstorm that is already lulling me to sleep. I saw that Games Workshop released condensed, rules-only versions of two codexes I’d been thinking about picking up– okay, specifically the Witch Hunters codex– but I already play two Imperial armies, and Chaos Space Marines don’t catch my attention all that well. I figure by the time I get around to starting the fourth faction, the Tau will have got their updated book; they already have an all-plastic path available so it’s just a matter of the rules update. We shall see.

The less said about the past three days, the better. I was indisposed most of Friday, and Saturday was spent dealing with the small matter of getting my car inspected and registered for the year (something which I always assume is going to be expensive, and always underestimate how expensive it’s going to be).

Today I spent getting some housework done and getting about half of the Imperial Guard sprues I have left to assemble primed up. I’m going a bit lighter on this initial primer, because the first batch of figures I did for the Guard were over-coated and look a little chunky. Still, with the drying line I made, I can have a lot more sprues painted each session than before, when I was just laying them down on another piece of cardboard.

Tomorrow, I return to something approaching a normal schedule, and that means peace. For now.

I spent last night discovering that I was almost out of white spray paint for priming the Imperial Guard army. That said, however, I also found that the IG infantry sprues are easier to pre-prime before assembly than the Space Marines were; I’m going to guess that the same will hold for the Orks once I get around to putting those together.

Tonight is a night for Rock Band.

Opponent: “So, you’re a Mechanized Guard player. That implies you have a higher valuing of human life than the average Imperial Guard commander.”
Me: “Or it means I just like having a crapton of tanks on the board.”
Opponent: “…..”
Me: (huge grin)

Warhammer 40,000 has been around for the better part of two decades now, and its players are varied in their ages. Having just turned 30 myself, I’d have to guess that I’m about in the middle of the pack in terms of age, even though I’ve only been in the hobby for about a year, and only seriously playing for eight months or so. However, there’s something universal about the game that appeals to a wide range of folks, and even though the crowds I hang out with tend to skew a little bit older, once in a while, I’m not the newbie.

Roughly three or four months ago, I took part in a “new players” tournament, the second time I’d been playing, and the first time I’d brought out my Space Marines chapter, not even half-painted at the time, but at least colored almost in my team hues. At that time I met Luke, a kid of about eleven or twelve who was bringing out his Orks for the first time. (Due to his age, I’m going to use an alias for him.) He’d conviced his parents to let him participate in the tournament, and there was a little friction when he explained to his mother that the event would run five or six hours. I was matched against Luke in the first round, and as a result I overheard everything.

There’s a bit of a stereotype of gaming and comics shops being seedy joints in darkness where youths waste days at a time, accomplishing nothing and possibly using the shop as a cover for less wholesome activities than, for example, tabletop warfare. I can say with conviction that I have never encountered one of these kinds of shops in reality. My current haunt, Legions Games, is probably the most well-maintained shop I’ve seen, and the players and staff are to a man among the nicest people I’ve ever faced. So, I felt it necessary to step in and let Luke’s mom know that he was perfectly safe in the store, and that if there were any problems, he could use my phone to call her. It took a little more discussion, but eventually, she relented, and the match went on as scheduled.

I won that round, but if you think I went easy on him, you’re wrong. He put up a good fight, and the scenario was the standard Assault on Black Reach setup (Orks vs. Space Marines, pretty much a wash if all else is equal), so there weren’t any inherent advantages or disadvantages to either of us. We were learning our armies as well, and I had the slight tactical avantage of having played as the Orks before. The point being, we had a good match, and Luke was really enjoying himself. I came away with the thought burning through my brain: “Luke’s a good kid.”

Flash forward to last night, then. My Imperial Guard army’s been assembled for weeks now, and painting it up is a slow but steady process. I went to the shop last night to try to get a couple short games in for the escalation campaign, when Luke saw me and said hello. I hadn’t seen him since the new-player tournament. He was eager to get a game in before he had to go home, and so I obliged him. We set up, and I saw that he was playing Space Marines this time around… kind of a reversal for us, really. He hadn’t played against the Guard before, so I gave him a few tactical pointers here and there (“Are you sure you want to shoot those? This tank’s a far more dangerous target for you right now…”), but again, I didn’t go easy or let up at all. He didn’t either, though it still felt like he was getting used to his army and their style; the Space Marines are average at everything, really, so tactics for them boil down to “know your enemy’s weakness and exploit that”. Again, we had fun, and this time it came down to a draw– a very, very narrow draw, as he got luckier with some rolls than I did.

And again, as I was driving home, the thought came to me. “Luke’s a good kid.” He was polite, amicable, and a little on-edge but still okay– I think he was just nervous playing against older opponents, which can be intimidating to anyone. When his dad came to pick him up, the two of us were going over the battle, noting what we could have done better and what worked well for us. He also signed up for the escalation campaign, so we’ll likely be playing more often– but as allies, since we’re both on the Imperial side.

It can get a little discouraging at times when all you seem to hear about is gamers going nuts or people doing stupid things over their games. I’ve lost track of how many dumb crimes were committed over XBoxes, or cards, or other amusements. But, knowing that people like Luke are playing, and learning good sportsmanship and good thinking skills– that makes me smile every time. And if I have to lose a thousand matches to get more players like Luke into gaming, then I’ll lose a thousand, and a thousand more for good measure, because in the end, everyone wins.

Had a great day, and a good evening that ended with a really interesting situation regarding Warhammer 40K. It’ll have to wait for the morning, though (I’m such a huge tease).

Also, go read Winter Melody. It bears repeating.

I know I’ve been saying that I’ve been tired for a while now, but really it’s just the last few weeks’ worth of constant activity catching up to me. Fortunately I have a pretty peaceful weekend coming up, where I should be able to take it easy for a little while at least.

On a very slightly related note, I’m thinking about expanding some of the fluff work I’ve been doing for the Warhammer 40K campaign into a short series, probably to run on the blog hosting the campaign. We’ll see– I’d want to talk to the group leaders first before making any commitments, but I’ll be honest, writing for the Imperial Guard has really been a lot of fun.