Monthly Archives: June 2020

Into the Funkoverse

Funkoverse

At the moment it’s possible to get the DC Funkoverse base set for a penny short of £20. It’s a big saving at that price. Big enough to tempt me into adding it to my collection.

I admit I like skirmish style games, such as Krosmaster, skirmish mode of Imperial Assault, X-Wing etc. The problem is a very small subset of my friends are into this genre, and an even smaller subset prepared to invest in a system.

Luckily I have one friend who already had a base set for Funkoverse (the Harry Potter one) so some-one to play against once the real world gets a safer place.

My problem with games like this is I like to get everything so I have options. Which in this type of game is team building options. Team building hits that deck building itch that I get with games like MtG, Dicemasters and Star Wars: Destiny. The team/deck building is a form of expression. It reflects the person you are. And something I enjoy a lot.

I’m not a big Harry Potter fan, the movies were ok at best, the books were fine. So unless there is an item or character that becomes a must have when building a competitive team to play with. The likely hood of me buying the base set and stand alone expansion for Harry Potter is slim.

As you can see there is a gold Batman figure (above) that was only given away in give aways and going for stupid money on eBay if you can find one. I hate this sort of thing. I wish companies didn’t do this.

But with Jurassic Park sets, Rick and Morty, further DC characters, Golden Girls (another one I’m not likely to get), KOOL-AID and Aggretsuko, on top of the others already mentioned, there are a few team building options already. Plus there are three further standalone expansions due out soon (Wonder Woman, Jaws, and Back to the Future). So Pop! are doing something right and making sure that expansions are getting released to give options.

The Pop! folks have released a beta version of rules for organised play (OP) for Funkoverse. And they look fine. But for this to take off within stores as a regular thing there needs to be prize support. Which needs to be free, and easily available to an FLGS. In a dream world supporting game groups as well would be nice. But I’m a realist. I have seen with other games, and particularly FFG the prize support in OP kits isn’t amazing, and isn’t free to stores. I know for my FLGS to get a kit in that they have to pay for they need to guarantee a minimum turn out to make it worth them getting a kit. Which isn’t going to happen unless they are getting a lot of demand from regular customers. And I’m not seeing that push from the Pop! folks to generate the buzz and players.

Funkoverse should have a wide appeal. The product they are putting out is outstanding. I’ll look at game play once I get it to the table. Which I’m really looking forward to.

Strontium Dog vs the Dark Judges

Strontium Dog

I’m not a big solo gamer. Despite the fact I do look for that option when I buy a game. When it comes to playing a game solo though there seems to be a barrier that puts me off. I think it’s all the setup and tear down. It seems a lot of hassle. Especially if there is an app version of the game.

So my actions this morning were totally out of character for me. I actually played Judge Dredd Helter Skelter with the Dark Judges expansion solo.

I think the main reason was that I was curious how the game would play.

Instead of going with the classic matchup for this solo play of Team Dredd vs the Dark Judges, I went with Team Strontium Dog vs the Dark Judges.

For the record you can not play Judge Dredd Helter Skelter solo, you need the Dark Judges expansion to do so. Playing solo means you chose one of the base games four factions (and I can see no reason why you couldn’t use one of the Wildlands factions as well). This is the team you will be playing. You will always be going up against the Dark Judges. It is not an option to play them in the solo variant.

The actions of the Dark Judges during play are determined by a small deck of cards. On the Dark Judges turn you turn over the top card of the deck and it shows the actions each of them will do that turn. When you have to decide who a Dark Judge targets or direction of travel the deciding logic is always the nearest opposing character. It’s a simple rule but effective.

Naturally there is a bit of randomness involved in the setup with the positioning of the fragments you need to collect, the Dark Judges and your team. I had three characters next to the Dark Judges during setup. But that was countered by having a character near to two fragments and not even close to a Dark Judge.

The Dark Judges are a pain to take down. You basically have to do a double attack. The first taking out the Dark Judges shield, and the second to do the actual damage. The shield resets at the end of a players turn. Luckily Psi attacks get through this. The reward for taking out a Dark Judge is high, which justifies the high risk. You double the number of fragments you have captured. By the time I took out Judge Fear I had three fragments already. So his demise was enough to give me the win.

I actually liked the solo mode. It worked surprisingly well. There was very little overhead and flowed really well. I can see myself playing the game solo again.

A new arrival and trivial organising

Uncategorized

As promised my prize from the Osprey competition arrived this morning.

Naturally the boxes didn’t remain sealed for long. As you can see the production quality is top notch, great custom insert, the now usual washed miniatures (that look great).

I may actually play this solo! Something I rarely do.

I also decided this morning to quickly organise my other (not D&D) RPG bits.

So instead of separate deck boxes containing the decks for Thunderbirds, Genesys, Paranoia and Alien. I’ve put them into a single large deck box, separated by dividers.

The custom dice for Alien, Genesys and the Paranoia computer die, along with some d6 dice (WOIN and Judge Dredd) have been split between two boxes. One of which also has some tokens and counters. I need a better solution for this. But for now it’ll do.

This will stop that little nagging feeling that was beginning to develop that I was going to lose one of the deck boxes.

There are also another couple of organising projects I need to do. The first is D&D related and involves getting the cards such as monsters, spells etc stored better.

The second is to create a “grab bag” for game nights that contains filler games such as Love Letter, Coup, D-Day Dice Pocket, and others. It just means I won’t have to hunt around, and make being organise easier. I may write a post about what is going into this.

Strontium Dog RPG first impressions

Judge Dredd, RPG, Strontium Dog

With the pdf of the Strontium Dog RPG in the hands of those that pre-ordered the physical version from the EN Publishing for a couple of weeks. I thought it was about time I shared some early thoughts/impressions.

First up I need to stress that this is not a stand alone RPG. So don’t go buying this thinking you have all you need to start play a Strontium Dog adventure. As the cover clearly points out you also need a copy of the Judge Dredd & The worlds of 2000 AD RPG. So factor that into the costings when you are considering to purchase this or not.

I should also point out that these thoughts are based on the pdf version of the rules. Granted it’s the version that was sent off to the printers by the publishers. So there should be no difference really.

I’m a fan of Strontium Dog and have been reading his stories since he appeared in the pages of Starlord and then made the jump to 2000 AD when the sales of Starlord forced it to be swallowed up by the better selling title.

I like what EN Publishing are doing with the characters they have access to. With Judge Dredd they are releasing campaign books that follow major story arcs from the comic strip, in the order that they appeared with comics. They are also not rushing them out, and making sure they release a quality product. So it is my hope that they continue this trend with Strontium Dog.

Within the pages you get no surprises, the expected rules for creating characters, equipment, setting information, some interconnected adventures, stats for NPCs and creatures/robots.

I think like me most people that get this source book will be wanting to create and play Strontium Dogs. When it comes to creating our character this rulebook basically replaces step 2 (choosing a species), step 4 (choose one of five careers) and step 9 (equipment). For the remaining steps of the character creation process you need that Judge Dredd rulebook.

Species wise we can either be a gronk, howler, human, mutant, robot or stix. But let’s face it most people are going to want to play a mutant of some kind. And there are nice tables that that cover corporeal, metabolic/metaphysical, and cosmetic mutations.

Strontium Dog careers are either civilian, outlaw, or S/D Agent. Compared to the Judges career paths the S/D Agent is pretty simple, and we get a much smaller, more easily digested diagram showing the flow of them.

Equipment we get the iconic electronux, der happy stick, plus generic details for blasters. Naturally there is a nice selection of bombs also to chose from with the obvious dimension warp and time bombs being amongst them. These two particularly can be game changing when used.

Which brings me to time travel and travelling to other dimensions. The rules do advise not to over use these within a campaign. I was hooping for more on the time travel front. What we basically have are some guidelines that amount to ‘keep it light and fun’ and a couple of paragraphs detailing a couple of options for handling time travel.

I like the tables for creating bounty contracts for an S/D Agent to go after.

The timeline with reference to the actual comic strips covered is a great touch.

We get a chapter of six interconnected contracts for S/D Agents to undertake. So these are basically adventures. I always look at this section pretty early on as this is the blue print for how the publisher sees an adventure to be planned. There was an absence of any maps here. I’d liked to have seen some pre-gen characters here as well, along with a generic floor plan or two of a starship.

Overall this lives up to the usual high standards that I’ve come to associate with EN Publishing. If you already have the core Judge Dredd rules, I think this is a no brainer if you are a Strontium Dog fan, or want a change of setting. However if you are coming into this as a Strontium Dog fan wanting to play as an S/D Agent in an RPG with your friends, and don’t already have the Judge Dredd rules, at roughly £70 to pick up both. I think you’d have to be a pretty dedicated fan, desperate to play an S/D Agent, with deep pockets. I just don’t think it’s worth in that scenario. Oh and I’m going to predict now that’s going to be my thoughts for when the Rogue Trooper rules come out.

Great start to the week

Judge Dredd

Over the weekend there was a “virtual con” on a boardgaming Facebook group that I belong to to to replace the void left by no UKGE this year (for the obvious reasons).

As part of that “virtual con” various publishers and stores ran competitions or promotions for the duration. Osprey Games publisher of Wildlands (and it’s expansions) plus the Judge Dredd themed version ran a competition to celebrate the release of the Dark Judges expansion for the Judge Dredd version. To enter all you had to do was leave a comment (which I did) and then a winner would be chosen at random.

This morning in the spare five minutes I had between finishing the weekly shop at our local Morrison’s and going into the B&M next door that opened its doors at 9am, I checked my email.

Strange a person I had never heard off wanted to connect on Messenger. I looked in the Facebook app and it was showing that the person had responded to a comment I had made. Curious. What had I said that the person would want to message me directly?

I looked at the Facebook post and my comment. Oh! I had won!

So you can guess I was quickly onto Messenger and replying to the guy with my address and thanking them.

Pretty excited about winning this. It’s something I would have eventually bought.

I own the original Wildlands and Undead expansion (which I did enjoy playing). I’d decided to hold out on getting the map pack and the adventurers expansion because I didn’t want to invest in the original knowing that the Judge Dredd one was being released. And at the time it was unclear if the two would be compatible. And if I had to choose I’m team JD every time.

After Judge Dredd Helter Skelter was released it wasn’t long before a pdf was released that allowed you to combine the two versions (You can pick up the official rules that allow you to use the original Wildlands with Helter Skelter HERE.)

Now with the new expansion the Dark Judges are added to the game along with solo rules.

As you can imagine I’m pretty excited about winning the game and expansion. Which may be here before the weekend. So keep an eye out for pictures of a happy me at the end of the week.