Desert of Zin

Fantasy Flight Games, makers of many fine games (including the Call of Cthulhu Card Game and the Arkham Horror boardgame), have been milking their Games Workshop licence in the years since they got it.  And all power to them, their standard of quality across all the games they produce seems to be consistantly high.

Well, they’ve been churning out a number of role-playing games on the licence (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader) and the next one to join the collection is Deathwatch, where you play a member of the secretive Space Marine chapter of the same name.

I haven’t played any of the other games in the series, although I have been seriously tempted, but the release of this particular game might be the push I need to get a copy and fire up a game.  I’ve been itching to get back into role-playing, time permitting, and I think that this might make a good evenings entertainment.

Bell of Lost Souls have a quick review and a video overview of the book.

And there’s a fancy collectors edition…  Not that I’ll buy it, but just head over to the FFG site to check it out.  It sure is pretty…

- Alistair

Totally forgot to mention that I finally passed the 50k barrier on Desert Of Zin (book one)!

Quality!

Of course I celebrated the occasion by attempting to gut the sty that is my study.  Getting there but it’s a second behind the priority of writing.  Had a crazy dream last night that the book was 100k in length.  So only half way there!

Joking aside, I’m really chuffed with myself.  I’ll be even more chuffed once the damn thing is finished but 50k was a line i desperately wanted to cross and now that I have I hardly look at my word count.

That can’t be a bad thing?

Oh, on a side note, with the big clear out of the study, does anyone want to buy the a complete set of the Horrorclix base set?  And the Horrorclix Great Cthulhu?  I’d even be willing to make a trade if you had Mythos or Call of Cthulhu ccg stuff you didn’t want any more.  Hey, what can I say?  A boy has to prioritize and card games are so much easier to store… 

(Found a old draft post after the last game of Cthulhu we had, in March!  Thought I’d post it anyway…)

So, no Call of Cthulhu adventure last night, but there was one last week.

The adventure – The Madman from the 6th. edition rulebook – was done in one night and almost saw Edgy (Logan Fletcher, investigative journalist) and Enzo (Montague Summers) meeting a rather unfortunate end…

Old Harny Rooger has gotten a touch eccentric. Tales are told off his involvement in mysterious rituals on hilltops and the possible involvement in goat sacrifice.

Oh dear, whatever can be done…

Enter Summers and Fletcher, the latter of whom knew a retired journalist who died mysteriously while investigating the aforementioned hilltop rituals.

Highlights of the game included Fletcher using his fake cop ID and failing every roll associated with using it. And his potential incarceration after it has been discovered as a forgery. And events leading up to that with Summers getting a bit physical with everyone on the way…

Anyway our intrepid investigators saved the day with what can only be described as the jammiest of dice rolls when dealing with Harny Rooger and a hilltop full of mi-go.

Ages ago (October last year, I think) I wandered in to the Games Workshop in Glasgow and (because I am an unrepentant geek) I bought a single Grey Knight Space Marine Terminator with the idea that it would be fun to paint.

To explain, when in my teens I had extensively played Warhammer 40K (an Eldar army and a Genestealer Cult, but not at the same time), enjoyed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and dabbled in Warhammer Fantasy Battle (with my impressively unpainted Skaven army).

Recently I’ve been getting back into my gaming in a serious way with semi-regular Call of Cthulhu games with Guy Incognito and Charming Manipulator. Before that I spent some time playing Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars (very possibly the greatest Customisable Card Game ever produced) and Call of Cthulhu (the card game, not the role-playing game).

All good fun, but it’s just not table-top. Table-top gaming is just sooooooooooooooo much more fun. And it’s not just the playing of the game. It’s the choosing/painting/customising of the models that’s all part of it. And other forms of gaming just don’t compare.

Hey what can I say, I’m a geek…

Myself, Guy Incognito and the Charming Manipulator had the first of (hopefully) many enjoyable Call of Cthulhu adventures last Thursday night.

(Quick backstory.  For ages now we have been thinking of getting into gaming of some form.  The previous week, by common consensus, we decided that horror roleplaying in the 1920′s should be given a fair chance.  I was particularly happy about this as there are loads of Cthulhu sourcebooks on my shelves, unused and annoying Ruth with their dust gathering ways.)

The first adventure was one from the back of the main rule book, The Haunting.  It’s pretty straightforward, which was ideal as none of us had done any roleplaying for years.

GI played a Freelance Journalist called Logan Fletcher and CM was an Occult Investigator called Montague Summers.

The story, for those of you who don’t know, is of a house that causes madness and/or death to its inhabitants.  The landlord is understandably upset.  After the most recent family suffered at the hands of this unknown evil, our fine detective duo were called upon to put a stop to it.

It was a slow start, with the guys getting used to the way the game is played (“no, DON’T go straight to the house!  Investigate!”) and myself taking a while longer than I expected to get re-aquainted with the rules.

Once we got in to the swing of things there were people to meet, places to go and mysteries to solve.  And the first visit to the haunted house merits special attention here…

Once our intrepid twosome were satisfied that they had a good angle on what was going on, they made for the house.  The ground floor was musty, dark and gave nothing away, the basement was checked once and a false wall was discovered and a visit to the first floor didn’t go well for Mr Fletcher.  The first bedroom from the top of the stairs once belonged to the bad guy and had been unused for a while.  And the bed from that room flew for GI’s character, knocking him though the closed window to the ground on floor down.  Heh.

A quick journey the the local hospital and they were both back the next day, this time to investigate the false wall in the basement.  Once though the false wall, beyond the rats and the second false wall they encountered and defeated the bad guy.  And there was much rejoicing…

It went well for the first adventure in many years.  We didn’t play last night as I’m still working out an adventure of my own.  Haven’t had the time recently to dedicate to it so a postponement is always better than a half-finished adventure.