...on GW's Legions Imperialis pre-order release day. These are (meant to be) Leman Russ tanks in Epic scale. They're made from hobby and household scrap for next to nothing. I like 'em. Abstract, not very detailed, but recognizable and fun. And a lot cheaper than what GW's selling their tiny tanks for.
Almost exactly one year ago, I released a post titled "On Running Very Different Types of Games." I started that post by admitting that
I used to spend far too much time, not too long ago, trying to figure out my 'perfect game system.' You know, that one, elusive RPG rules-system -- whether about to be published, somehow already published but not on my radar, or the pending product of my intensive house-ruling and hacking -- that finally would usher in a blissful millennial regime of perfectly satisfying game-play. Yeah, um, about that...I'm pretty sure gaming doesn't work that way...
I went on to talk about my growing recognition of the value of different game systems for different niches. This included my coming to terms with running a game for a time for what it can offer, and not demanding that it perfectly check boxes it wasn't designed to fill.
It was in that spirit that I'd recently launched a Pathfinder 2nd Edition (PF2e) campaign. Already, a year ago, I could tell that this system -- MUCH crunchier than I was accustomed to -- had much to offer, and also posed real drawbacks:
Right now, the slower pace required by the more detailed, crunchy combat mechanics and turns in PF2e is pushing me to focus on designing memorable, interesting encounters, but at the cost of flexible, more open-ended play. I feel like a technician instead of an artist: checking moves, maintaining order, applying rules, tracking mechanics (and that's even with a willingness to just make rulings when I can't find the 'proper' PF2e way quickly). I'm really missing the playful, creative sense of surprise that I get when GMing a less crunchy and more open system.
So...hmm...what's a GM to do?
An earlier version of me would probably be screeching to a halt already, deciding that 'this isn't THE system, after all', and moving on in search of greener pastures. But the shift in my thinking in recent years, as described above, has me looking for a different solution. PF2e is a GREAT engine, FAR better than many other games I've run at doing certain things. But it's also slower and more cumbersome when compared to many other games I've run.
Instead of jumping ship and looking for 'something better', I'm trying to focus on celebrating what we are gaining from using this system at this time, while thinking clearly about what else I might like at an appropriate - and maybe other? - time.
So. It's a year later -- and that PF2e campaign is now, finally (oh my heart, finally, finally!!!) coming to an end. My players have prevailed (well, except for an unexpected TPK to a Black Pudding, after which I advanced the setting clock by thousands of years and had them build new characters). But now, a story that begain with The Evils of Illmire and The Black Dragon of Brandonsford (using Knave) before switching rules to PF2e is coming to its end: only a single BBEG boss fight, as the Leviathan Chaos Dragon tries to force its way back into the material realm, remains.
I joked to my players that between their travel schedules and PF2e's rules, we'd be able to wrap up that last combat encounter over the next seventeen weeks. I laugh (weakly), but there's a grain of truth in the joke. Our last fight took two sessions, with several travel weeks interrupting the sessions. That means we spent two evenings, about 4-5 hours in total, to resolve five rounds of combat.
In PF2e, one round = 6 seconds. So, yeah, that's almost 5 hours of real-world play to resolve 30 seconds of action.
That math should explain why I am so, so thoroughly done with PF2e for now. I'm so burned out on crunching numbers. I need to get back into running games that really invite me to be creative, rather than precise.
And yet...
I'm really glad I persevered to the end of this campaign. I don't think there's anything wrong with canceling a campaign before it ends, if the GM or players just aren't enjoying it. This has been different; the experience has been enjoyable (especially for my players). It's seen some great times together. And I still see PF2e as a truly excellent combat simulator. But we've filled that niche for a while, now, and I'm ready to run something like a PbtA game. If PF2e is solving engineering problems, PbtA is writing poetry.
I would be genuinely unhappy to keep running PF2e for the season ahead. But I feel oddly satisfied and content for having pushed through to the end. It was really helpful to make a deal with myself: commit to finishing this campaign, and then run whatever you really want to run next. A year ago, I mused:
...maybe the right approach now involves being aware of the different kinds of play that I like, celebrating the ways I'm getting some of that, and waiting patiently and flexibly to try other styles at the right time.
The patience has paid off. The PF2e is coming to a healthy end, for now. Up next is a campaign of ROOT, the boardgame-based rpg that is basically Mouse Guard but through a PbtA lens. Therein, I'm fleshing out some of the faction-heavy-sandbox work I've mused about here and there in recent months' posts.
What am I trying to say here? Maybe it's a little embarrassing to admit this, as a 40-something professional, but I feel like I'm growing up a little more, as a person, through this process. Learning to accept voluntary limits and constraints so that I can actually see, actually recognize, actually enjoy the blessings that are right in front of me -- not always abandoning the present to chase some ideal across the horizon.
It's a silly thing to be learning by way of paladins, dragons, and fireballs, but I'll take health and maturity as it's offered.
Peace, Blessings, and Happy gaming.
-Gundobad
Finally got primer and paint on another of my converted Traitor Knights for playing (3rd edn.) Epic: 40,000.
I still plan to spruce up the base, but I think he looks suitably business-like to chase around those loyalist dogs...
Well, having recently usurped the role of pontifical cultural commentator, I wanted to note - in counterpoint to my recent grumpy comments - that I watched the season finale of Ahsoka last night ... and left happy, overall.
Now, I will say (with only a minimum of spoilage) that there was a lightsaber battle in the episode that really cheesed me off: the opponent was fun, but Ahsoka's own strategy seems to be: "Fool! I shall defeat you by keeping my back turned toward you for 25% of our combat!" I shall not comment on the ongoing issue of that reversed-grip saber-hold (for fear of becoming utterly churlish).
Ok, enough grumpiness. The show had a few opportunities to take the easy way out, giving us nice clean TV-showish endings that were a bit too tidy (something the last Mandalorian season really rolled around in). Instead, the show-writers took a different route. The ending of Ahsoka felt like it respected the story being told, wanted to give it some room to breathe, recognized that this takes time. The story was much more satisfying as a result. I hope that becomes normal.
There are big things afoot, here, for the entire Star Wars-verse. Despite some hiccups, I'm enjoying the ride.
My efforts to build up a heavily kitbashed, converted, and/or scratchbuilt force for the ol' 3rd-edition Epic: 40,000 wargame are finally getting me somewhere! For team Gundobad (facing off against an Imperial army commanded by my kids) I've been working on an Iron Warriors Chaos army, with help from various other plunder-minded auxiliaries.
I finally got around to making a kitbash-conversion for my general/supreme commander. Allow me to introduce Perturabo, Primarch of the Iron Warriors traitor legion (famous for his grumpiness and his big hammer). Note that this is specifically ascended daemon Primarch Perturabo - he'd be way too large otherwise, as this is a 28mm miniature that looms over the regular infantry. I chopped up an old Reaper Bones mini (some kind of steampunky engineer fella who also looked goofy to me) and added Terminator and Chaos Marine bits to round him out. The Reaper mini had a steam backpack that sooooooorta looks like a 6mm tank turret once it's chopped off, so I tweaked his stance to have the dude stomping on that. I might yet add a cannon, but otherwise he just wants paint.
I've also now converted enough of those Battletech 'mechs into Traitor Knights that I can run a detachment of War Dogs (smaller Knights) in my army. Among the last few conversions, one looks quite "traditional" to my eye, although I may have gone rather overboard with the other, more mutated one:
I'm still working on some larger figures. In 3rd ed. Epic, the more abstract rules just give you larger knights that are slower but have more firepower, and smaller knights with more mobility and close assault strength. I had planned to run a single detachment combining both, but I think I might end up running two smaller detachments, one for each specialty.
Anyway, here for now are the makings of a Knight household from a far, grim future:
Saving $$$ compared to official GW Knights was a key concern when I started this project, but I've also really enjoyed the creative exercise and how individualized each of these weirdos became.
We've been keeping up weekly with the Ahsoka TV show. I was apprehensive at first; we aren't really fond of the Rebels characters, and although we had fun watching The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, we also felt like these recent offerings could get lackluster at times. (On the other hand, I regard Andor as an absolute masterpiece).
However, I've been pleasantly surprised on the whole by Ahsoka. There are bits and pieces I don't like, but I've found the storyline engaging and the characters often enjoyable. Like everyone else on the internet, apparently, I'm enjoying the late Ray Stevenson's Baylan Skoll character a lot. I've enjoyed the move to "a galaxy far, far away, but a different galaxy." And I was excited to see what they'd do with Grand Admiral Thrawn.
And so we come to the substance of today's complaint. It's just a nitpick, I suppose, but it's the kind of illusion-shattering nitpick that really dampened my enjoyment of the last episode (whereas the episode before that was great).
So. You know how Thrawn's whole shtick is that he's this mad tactical genius? And his too-busy-to-clean-their-armor, hardened "night troopers" have apparently done nothing for YEARS except run ops for their tac-savvy boss?
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| https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Night_Trooper |
Filoni, you can't just tell us that. Here, you really do have to show it. And doing so would be almost comically easy, given how the Star Wars franchise has usually handled Storm Troopers. Given how much money has obviously been poured into making this show, given the fact that the lightsaber fights have been stage-choreographed (how well is a contentious matter, of course), I have no doubt that Disney's budget could have included one afternoon with an infantry veteran consultant. Just one afternoon.
When Thrawn's troops disembark from their landing craft to back up Shin Hati against the three Jedi/former Jedi/wannabe Jedi heroes, the Grand Admiral issues a tactical formation command to partially encircle the foe. Ok, good, they've got standard operating procedures (though I can't remember whether they partially or fully surround the good guys; fully surrounding them in a firefight would be a really bad idea, as it just invites friendly fire.
But when Thrawn issues the order to fall back ... all these tacticool troopers just ... turn around en masse and run directly back to their transports like kids on a field trip who've just realized the bus is actually, finally about to roll away from the water park.
Fire and movement. Bounding overwatch. Voice-coordinated maneuvers, in which one team faces the enemy and keeps up suppressing fire while the other team falls back to the next piece of cover. Then, still coordinating with voice signals, the teams switch roles. So every storm trooper gets back safely to the nice warm transport, but somebody is always pointing a blaster at the enemy, until they're safely back in the transport (and maybe even longer). Frankly, the trooper extras wouldn't even have to perform these maneuvers particularly well; just making some visible effort to move tactically would make them stand out (which is kind of sad).
Here's the thing: when you write fiction, making the villains idiots makes the heroes' efforts fall flat. When you make the villains compelling professionals, and then come up with some way the heroes' desperate resistance could work anyway ... well, now we're talking.
This is just a silly gripe, of course. And I know that Storm Troopers' functional incompetence is almost a cliche in Star Wars. But it is astonishing to me that so many Star Wars shows of late have asked us to take this group of combatants more seriously ... but then they hamstring that entire effect by not making the slightest effort to make them behave like they've at least been through boot camp.
Rant over. Cheers.
My tiny Traitor Knight retinue continues to grow!
These are, for now, intended for use with old 3e Warhammer Epic: 40,000 rules. As with recently featured mini conversions, I am using current Battletech mech minis as a basis for (sometimes extensive) kitbashing and conversion. The Battletech minis are MUCH cheaper than GW's actual Knight/Titan minis.
I'm very pleased with this one. I'm starting to wonder why I ever wanted to buy GW knights - kitbashing these things is both cheaper and CRAZY fun.
Here's how he started the day! Almost unrecognizable?!
For those interested in ideas for such tomfoolery, here is a general 'recipe' -
+ I slightly trimmed down the head, and then glued around a bit of flexible plastic (formerly part of a cottage cheese tub) to give the top a bit of that "curved armor plating" look that many Helverin and War Dog knights have. That's the white stuff you can see on one of the photos above.
+ The arm weapons are an Ork sword (right arm) and the business end of a Chaos Marine chainsword (left arm). I cut down the forearms on the mech to make a decent fit.
+ The "big autocannon" on the right shoulder is an old Ork bolta pistol, sans its magazine and grip. The ammo-feed belt supplying rounds from the rear is a bit of a 30+-year-old 1:72 WW2 plastic tank tread.
+ The ammo-supply pack and associated weird tech accessory (so fashionable!) on the back is a Chaos Marine power armor backpack, but turned upside down, with the stabilizer jets cut off, and with the now-upside-down skull filed off. The ammo feed belt connect to the back side of the pack.
+ The head is a trimmed-down Chaos Marine head, with some extra cuts so that it fits flush where I mount it.
+ Chaos Marine Shoulderpads, because in the grim darkness of the far future, there are only hyperprotected shoulder joints. I normally like to mount these sideways/reversed on my kitbashed knights - they look more 40k knight-ish that way - but mounting them the normal way was a much better fit on this particular model. I think they still look cool.
Happy gaming!
