Morning everyone!
It’s a sunny day here in the UK so far, which is good for the Remembrance Day services taking place throughout the country. It’s actually quite sedate and quiet in my little corner of the realm, too, which is very pleasant!
So, as you know, there have been some pretty major developments in the LCG world, starting with the introduction of Rotation a la Magic into the tournament scene. Of course, it’s not quite as bad as Magic, where players pretty much need to change their entire card pool to stay current. But still, while it’s a sensible move that should help lower the bar of entry for new folks, there is a part of me that sympathises with folks who are suddenly seeing their cards with finite lifespans now. As a non-tournament player (hell, I barely get to play at all these days!), it doesn’t really affect me, but still.
A Game of Thrones is also moving to a 2nd Edition, which I will in all likelihood not buy into. I’ve spent far too much money on the game already to want to start over, plus for all the time I get to play it, it’s just not worth it. It is, to me, a very good game as it stands, so given how I don’t play in tournaments, I have no real need to buy it all over again.
There hasn’t been a whole lot of other news coming out of Fantasy Flight this past week, however. Lord of the Rings LCG has had two very exciting announcements, but beyond that, it’s largely been taken up with the Worlds hoopla.
So first of all, Heirs of Númenor is getting its Nightmare Mode decks, which look like they’re really great. Something that particularly appeals to me is the new Peril in Pelargir, which sees a situation similar to that introduced in the nightmare Hunt for Gollum. In both cases, the nightmare mode introduces a much more aggressive encounter deck that actively works towards its own win condition, rather than passively waiting for the players to lose. Looking forward to seeing these!
The next Saga box has also been announced, The Treason of Saruman. Taking us through the first half of The Two Towers, we get a Fellowship version of Aragorn, as well as the possibility of new Hero versions of Gimli and Legolas, characters who haven’t seen an update since the Core Set. Of course, they’re both great cards, so whether they need an update is debatable, but it seems that fans of the game expect one, given how many times other heroes have seen new versions (Fellowship Aragorn will be that character’s fourth incarnation as a hero). It looks like it should be pretty amazing, anyway, with 11 new player cards that will hopefully add some more to the Rohan trait, so I’m really looking forward to this!
New packs for Warhammer Conquest and Android Netrunner have also been announced, and we’ve seen another preview for Imperial Assault. As far as new releases go, we’ve finally got our hands on some of the new LCG stuff in the UK…
Ah, wonderful! I’ve not really looked into these cards yet, but take a look here at a very brief overview of the Descent stuff!
Y’know, I talk a lot about upcoming games and new releases here in this blog, but it seems to me that I never go into great detail over playing games, except in my Game Day blogs. Well, this past week I’ve only managed two games, due to one thing or another, but still! The other day I played Space Hulk: Death Angel again, adding the Tyranid expansion for a bit of variety. You may not be aware that Games Workshop are currently releasing more Tyranid monsters, but I’ve found myself somewhat enamoured of these big bugs, and have been thinking about getting myself a second army. I haven’t – heck, my Necrons are still troop-less – but still. Playing Space Hulk: Death Angel was therefore a useful way of getting my fix, I suppose!
If you haven’t already read my blog linked earlier, you really should take a look! Then come back here and laugh at how badly things are going in the above picture! The Tyranid cards are a lot more brutal than the Genestealers from the base game. Some of them have abilities on them, which can make the game so much more difficult than usual.
As a pretty difficult game anyway, this can be quite torturous! The way the swarms kept leaping around, however, made my best-laid plans crumble right before me. However, this is only my second game, so I’m hopeful that things might get better…
Speaking of Tyranids…
More bugs are on their way! Following last week’s big bug news, we’ll next be seeing some rather beautiful drop pods for the Tyranids – the Tyrannocyte/Sporocyst kit!
These things really are the sort of repulsive monstrosity that would make me fear the Tyranid army more than anything.
I’ve mentioned before how some of these models have the xenomorph look to them, of course, and something that really terrifies me about the Alien films is not the actual alien itself, but the breeding-chamber sequences. This latest kit seems to really draw on that kind of fear as well. A lot of the xenos stuff tries to play on these sorts of primal fears, it seems, including my own Necrons, with kits like the Tomb Stalker and Canoptek Acanthrites.
So yeah. The Tyrannocite is the drop-pod of the Tyranid army, fired at a planet in order to disgorge the Tyranids inside directly into battle. Alternatively, you can make a Sporocyst and Mucolid Spore:
Delightful, no? The Sporocyst is essentially an armoured bunker that spews forth spore mines, and the Mucolid Spore floats around the battlefield until it explodes over its enemies. Ah, bio-warfare!
It’s been mentioned before, of course, but I’m always a little surprised by the GW “web bundles” as being exactly the same price as the individual models. It seems odd because I would have thought almost any other company would have given a small discount for the bulk-buy, but evidently not!
Anyhow, these models do look really good, and should form a wonderful basis for a Tyranid swarm. Still not entirely convinced I want to get a second xenos army though – I bought last week’s White Dwarf thinking it might be handy if I come to get into Tyranids, but I’m not 100% sure. Even so, I love just how much new stuff they’re getting right now, and hope Tyranid players are as excited as I am!
I find myself hoping that my beloved Necrons will see a similarly awesome release when their time comes around. Which will hopefully be sooner rather than later!
The rumours still have more Tyranids on the horizon, however, with wave three consisting of the plastic remake of the Zoanthrope kit. Also, we have yet to see the rumoured new HQ for the Tyranids, so maybe there will be a fourth wave? November appears to be shaping up into quite the Tyranid month! Assuming Blood Angels really are next, then, I won’t likely be getting a Necron codex until the new year.
At least that gives me plenty of time to paint up my models…
Anyway!
Yesterday, I got in a game of Runebound. This game is truly excellent, as I’ve already mentioned here in my blog. It’s currently in something of a limbo, however, while a possible third edition is in the works, making it very difficult to get hold of. It’s one of my all-time favourites, at any rate, and I always enjoy escaping into Terrinoth for a while!
Runebound is also one of these games that works well as something of an event. Last year, in the run up to Christmas, I played a series of games on Saturday night as a series of “Big Game Saturdays” – Runebound (Mists of Zanaga), Arkham Horror (Kingsport Horror), Fortune & Glory (with all the expansions), leading up to A Touch of Evil on Christmas eve, and then Eldritch Horror on Christmas day. Fantastic times, I feel! Not sure whether I’ll be doing that again this year, but I had so much fun last night that it’s a distinct possibility! I think one of the big appeals for me was that I used a character I don’t normally play, and a small adventure variant I don’t normally go for, and really just went forth on the adventure!
I really hope FFG haven’t completely abandoned Runebound. At GenCon this year, they made the very cagey reply that yes, they did still have plans for Runebound, before moving very swiftly on, but then they work a couple of years in the future, so we may not be seeing anything for a while. Or we may see something sooner, and that’s one of the reasons why Descent has suddenly slowed down. Who knows? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Unlike A Game of Thrones, however, I’d very likely snap up a third edition of Runebound simply because it’s Runebound!
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