Scrolls of the PlatinumWarlock: Reaper Miniatures

Showing posts with label Reaper Miniatures. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Warlock's Origins 2011 (No Longer) Live Blog!--Swag Report!

All righty! Now we're back in action...back to the normal routine. While Origins is always a blast, it's the sort of vacation that I have to recover from!

But, that doesn't stop us at all. Rather, it just keeps us coming back for more. And, what's one of the best parts about a giant gamer convention complete with giant Dealer Hall? The swag, that's what! Let's take a look at this year's haul:

The PlatinumWarlock's swag from the 2011 Origins Game Fair!

Deadlands: Hell on Earth--Wasted West Companion and Monsters, Muties and Misfits: I've been pretty zealous about my fanboy-ism for Deadlands recently, in all its incarnations. But, I'd been unable to find any copies of these in any of my friendly local game shops. I even thought I was out of luck at Origins, until L-train and Will the ManMan pointed out that the Pinnacle Entertainment/Studio 2 booth had them! Even better--I got my copies signed by Shane Lacy Hensley, head honcho behind Deadlands and Savage Worlds!
Deadlands: The 1880 Smith & Robards Catalog: Yeah, even more Deadlands. Not only does it have all sorts of mechanical doo-dads that would make any Mad Scientist drool, it includes additional rules for Weird Science and how to build Scrappers--steampunk warriors, replete with ghost-rock powered cybernetics!
Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen: Truth be told, I already own a customizable GM screen. You can even see it in some of my pictures from Origins, as I used it to show off the Guild Shield, as well as signs for my game.. It's a fantastic device, as it lets me fill in whatever inserts I need, and change them out for various systems. My only caveat for my current GM screen was its height--it had 4 panels, all in portrait style, which made it difficult to look over. While that's good for Call of Cthulhu and other horror games, a more cinematic game demands a more accessable screen! I'm not getting rid of my old one, though--the PlatinumChick is getting that one!
ICONS--The Villainomicon: Okay, so totally geeked out with Gareth-Michael Skarka at the Cubicle 7 booth, talking about various ICONS games and the like. I couldn't turn this one down. More bad guys is always good, and the ones made for ICONS are always stylish, iconic, and interesting. This was money well spent...and, besides, GMS signed my ICONS book!
Reaper Minis--Mouslings: The PlatinumChick is obsessed with these. I got her a box of them for Christmas last year, and she's been hooked since then. She's all about the cute little Mousling warriors--I'm kind of shocked she hasn't been playing MouseGuard, all told! She managed to pick up some of the rarer Mouslings, only being offered at this year's convention season. Excitement for her!
Cyborg Commando and SpellJammer: I picked up these from ChaoticKarl, as part of our yearly birthday exchange. A professor at his university was selling off some of his older gaming materials, which he had ChaoticKarl put up at the Origins Auction. But, I couldn't let these ones slip past--they're both spectacular! I haven't gotten around to reading through them yet, but...well, I haven't read most of the stuff that I've bought yet!
WEGS Ultimate Dungeon Party Deck: Oh, yeah! That product I worked on! Yes, sirree, El Willy's UDP came out with a bang, to full demos all convention long. It's a great little deck, full of neat tricks and skills for the advanced WEGS player. I'm looking forward to throwing these down on our home table sometime really soon!

All righty, gang. Almost done with Origins stuff for a while. This Saturday, I'll toss in my post-convention thoughts, and even fill you in on my latest project....I've been busy already, friends and neighbors!

Monday, June 21, 2010

In Which The Warlock Supports Some Reapers...

As I'm busy packing for Origins 2010, I wanted to set aside a little time to show off minis I'm looking at picking up for our RPGA game. With clan united behind axe and hammer, we shall prevail!!

The PlatinumChick's mighty war-skald!

The Professor's wrathful Invoker!

Chaotic Frederick's furious Avenger!

Karl's starry-eyed Warlock!

Your friendly neighborhood Warlock's very own Hamish, Paladin of Amuanator!

All of these, naturally, are from Reaper Miniatures (all rights reserved, and all that jazz). Hopefully, I can find them all! :D

Sunday, March 23, 2008

WEGS 'n' WittCon V Wrap-Up

My apologies on the delay, ye loyal few readers--the funeral in Pennsylvania for my grandfather was somewhat delayed, which led to a slight inability to blog. However, the Warlock is back in action and ready to give you the rundown.

Here's our geekdom hero, El Willy, arriving at Krystal Keep. Krystal Keep is the virtual successor to Wexford Hills Hobbies (boo! hiss!), which is a great improvement over the earlier incarnation. El Willy arrived with his resident Minion Master, Willy the 2 (known here, and in the Tale Wegziotic as Wt2), but neither had any readiness for the chaos we were about to inflict upon them...

...mainly because the vast majority of our gaming group came out for the festivities! While El Willy and his compadre were more used to running game for 5-6 people, we started the WEGS demo with no less than 9 sitting around the table, with more joining the fray!

The pic above is of the whole group of players at Krystal Keep! Needless to say, a massive amount. Even those who weren't playing got a whole earful of WEGS throughout the night--a great thing for El Willy's publicity and the sales at the Keep.

The game itself was a series of encounters, linked around a "Dungeon-crawling" theme, but ended in a massive PvP fracas. I bowed out approximately half-way through the dungeon-crawl to focus on getting the photos, and to let a newcomer play, taking over my Humz mage. However, this gave me the chance to act as an "assistant Minion Master" with El Willy and Wt2, running a Level 8 Ranger Minion, sniping out poor Will's Warrior, who laid on the ground in Lost Action Phase.

However, that was only the beginning of the festivities as Saturday brought about WittCon V--"Alea Iacta Est". This was an exciting con for me, as it brought about the first chance to premier Dungeon Slam!

While I only had 8 total takers for Dungeon Slam! the players really seemed to catch on fast, and enjoy the game itself. I really got quite a few solid responses, as well as some great ideas to enhance the game from Wt2, who sat in on the second session.

Here's a picture of the full-game set-up, as it is now:

While I did not end up running the Cthulhu Dark Ages game I had originally planned, this gave me the chance to partake of some extra WEGS-ing!
El Willy, Ebbs, and Wt2 teamed up, using the "Fist Full o' Boomstick!" varient WEGS-rules to provide us with a Cthulified WEGS scenario. With their creative genius on the run, we faced down the horrors of the Column-Golem, and then a massive creature bearing a significant resemblance to a certain tentacled horror-from-beyond...

All told, this year's WittCon left me a little conflicted. While we had a ton of great events----the debuts of both Dungeon Slam! and MOE--The Boardgame, the arrival of El Willy and full slate of WEGS games, a Reaper-Minis paint-and-take event, The Light Trading Company selling dice----attendance was pitifully low. Very few Guilders came out, and much of the Con was made up of community members and people running events. Needless to say, this is frustrating, particularly when even the president of the guild was only in attendance for an incredibly short time. One hopes that this is a fluke, but it is particularly worrisome.

That said, life goes on, and the games go with it. Currently, Ebbs and I are getting ready to evangelize some WEGS over at Wright State's "Glory Con" two weekends hence.

Hell, we even have our own nickname: the Witt-Weggers!

I'm sure I'm missing a whole lot in terms of the Con, but that's life. If you'd like to see more pictures--I have nearly 100!--drop a line in the comments and let me know!

Monday, July 09, 2007

The Warlock's Origins 2007 Report--The Swag!

Part of any good convention is the swag you get, and Origins was no exception. Here, I'll detail some of the great stuff that the Springfield Mafia (including myself) picked up, and some of the neat stuff that was around the dealer room.

Ah, yes. Speaking of the dealer room, I must say that I was impressed. I've heard some complaints already that the dealer room was "more of a flea market than an exhibition of the industry." With that, I can wholeheartedly agree. However, if I want to hear from "industry professionals," I'll go to one of their seminars and talk to them. When I want swag, I want the flea market. As such, the dealer room was fine by me!

And now for the Swag!

GURPS Warehouse 23. Now, I'm not a GURPS fan by any stretch--I'd rather run d20, just for the fact that I'll have more interested, involved players. However, when this was on the "3 for $10" table at SJ Games' booth, I couldn't pass it up. Conspiratorial goodness, and a detailed rundown of how the Warehouse would work in several different genres, as well as lots of neat items to put in there. Along with this, I picked up a box of skeleton minis (everybody loves skellies!) and Silicon Valley Tarot for Jules.
The Critonomicon. A softcover book from Technomancer Press, this book doesn't look like much. I can't believe I missed it, though, with its Day-Glo Orange cover and its hundreds of tables. This book is chock-full of unique critical hits, critical misses, wild magic effects, and rules for other crazy happenings. With the way my players and I roll, I'm going to get a ton of milage out of this...
Faiths of Eberron. The PlatinumChick picked this up in anticipation of her upcoming Eberron game. Flipping through it earlier, it looks to be pretty quality, with tons of information about the various religions and cults that pop up all across Eberron. There didn't seem to be much crunch to the book--only a handful of feats and divine spells, and a few magic items--however the fluff more than makes up for it. Very nice job, all in all.
A Shoggoth on the Roof (Libretto). Finally, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has released the libretto to the Musical That Cannot Be Produce. I already own the Cast Recording, but having the full script/libretto makes this all the sweeter. If you're a Cthulhu fan in any sense of the word, check this out.
Dungeons and Dragons Icons: Gargantuan Blue Dragon. For a mere $28, the PlatinumChick couldn't pass this one up. Personally, I like the Gargantuan Black better, myself, but the mini is still a very sweet example of how well Wizards of the Coast produces their project. Love and care were involved in making this, and it shows. High quality, indeeed.
Nightmares of Lovecraft: Cthulhu and Dagon. Lionel picked these up on the cheap, and man....they did not disappoint. While they're a little on the small side, they're still amazing sculpts, which are...well, disturbing to look at. Just what they need to be, for the subject material. Lovecraft would be proud.
Aliens vs. Predator HorrorClix. Ebbs picked up these on the cheap, as well, getting most of the line. While we haven't played yet, the sculpts were nice. Only problem was mainly the fact that many of the clix were slightly broken, particularly around their feet. The Alien queen looked particularly impressive.
Cults Across America. Again, a Lionel purchase. We haven't played yet, but this one looks to be good! I'll review it, as we get into the box.
Unspeakable Words. We played this during some downtime before going to bed. Wow, was it a blast. Incredibly simple game play, the idea is to make words from your 7 card hand. You get points based on how many angles are in each letter, but must make a Sanity check against your word's score to avoid going nuts. Lose 4 Sanity, and you are insane--if you're nuts, you can use ANYTHING as a word. Lose 5, and you're out of the game. First to 100 points (or the last one sane!) wins. This game is simple, yet amazingly fun. Highest recommendation I can give.
Kellen, Nobleman Adventurer. I've been looking for a mini to use during Jules' imminent Eberron game, and this one fit the bill. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one with twin axes, so I settled on one with a sword and a long fighting-dagger. A sweet little mini, it looks just as well as I can ask. If nothing else, Reaper's Dark Heaven Legends Line are of a truly high quality across the board.