Updates Suspended

Due to a family matter, I'm putting updates on hold for now. My apologies to my regular readers, I hope to be back soon.

The Forbidden Stars Review

In my slightly younger days, I was very much into Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 (40K) miniatures wargame. I'm a Nottingham nerd, it's something we do. However, like most things, my interests ebb and flow, and I haven't played the game proper in years. Part of this is GW recent behaviour and apparent disinterest in balancing their fricking games, the cost of playing too, but another reason is my increased interest in nerdy boardgames. Today, I talk about a game that involves both, Fantasy Flight's Forbidden Stars, a space strategy/empire game based on the 40K setting, but apparently building on the out-of-print Starcraft boardgame(1). Is it any good? Well, yes, but not without some criticisms.

Let's start with the obvious plus. Forbidden Stars is a really nice looking game on basically every level. The plastic miniatures are basically ideal. The infantry are depicted as elaborate and abstract banners, but apart from that, these immediately recognisable and invites comparison with GW's own models. Land vehicles seem to be taken from the old Epic miniature game, while the ships could be used in a game of Battlefleet Gothic with no trouble. These are gaming pieces, not display pieces, so detail isn't as sharp, but you aren't gonna complain. They would probably look gorgeous painted too. An assortment of cards are used, no doubt drawing from the standard GRIMDARK clip art library, but undeniably attractive. Map tiles are very nice too, and seemingly new art. There's a buttload of tokens, but they are pleasant tokens, and not used for their own sake. There are custom dice, Fantasy Flight is in the habit of such things, but like the tokens they seem to belong and add to the experience. This is the most expensive single boardgame I have ever purchased, but cracking the box open for the first time does a lot to justify the price of entry. Its just that well made, not a single thing feels cheap, and they did every conceivable thing to tie the game to its setting. Where the otherwise excellent presentation fails however is rulebook structure. Things are split between a how to play booklet and a rules reference, which are written differently. Whereas the former works reasonably well as a simplified introduction, the latter is obtuse and dry. Its organised alphabetically, rather than conceptually, which makes actually finding things out a nuisance up when playing. I find myself reminded of those confusing games of Warhammer 40K that happen just after a new edition comes out, and I'd single this out as the only real weakness of the game.

While baggies are provided, I added some more

Once I got my head around the rules though, about game 4, I found a pleasingly involved strategy game. Its not on the same level as the similarly big and spacey empire game Eclipse, the setting is more about open war than empire building, but there's more than enough to get your teeth into. The use of order tokens requires a lot of careful thought, as they are alternately placed in secret, and resolved as a stack. Some compromises inevitably have to be made, and a complex plan is easily ruined by enemy action, making that phase the most important in the game. This is further complicated by order upgrades, which vary from simple buffs to game changers. Orks for example have one which allows them to cross voids without using a ship, while Ultramarines can combine Orbital Strikes with land invasions, both of which are otherwise impossible and are nasty surprises for people. Another big consideration are Warp Storms and a player's Event Deck, both of which are not completely under anyone's control. The storms act as barriers which are moved at the end of a turn, meaning your lines of battle keep changing, while the Event Deck grants a bonus of some kind, some saved for later turns. This all means that the big picture is prone to shifting both turn-to-turn and within turns, so you have to be adaptable while keeping the bigger goal in mind, claiming your Objective Tokens. Games are not won by xenocide or building up a big army, although that doesn't hurt, its more about making sudden, blitzkrieg assaults on worlds, holding only long enough to claim the token. There's meat to this.

Tactically, the game is even better. While my experience with war-oriented boardgames is regrettably limited (2), the method for resolving land battles in Forbidden Stars is surprisingly involved. Its a combination of dice and light deck-building with extremely thematic cards. Each player rolls number of dice are rolled based on the models participating, with the players taking turns to apply a card to that result, up to three times. Cards add to dice total, but actually have a fair greater effect on the game than the dice themselves due to their special rules. These combats play out like a really short game of Magic: The Gathering, players responding to each other's moves, cards complementing the models and each other. Cards match up with their faction and setting extremely well, with no obvious repetition or overlap in mechanics. Orks take the brute force approach, Eldar are sneaky and mobile. Marines tend to be tanky and defensive, with Chaos doing subtle things with cultists until the slobbering loonies are set loose. Its brilliant if you have any familiarity with the setting, although nitpicks can be made(3). The nicest thing I can say is that if Fantasy Flight broke this system off and sold it separately, I'd buy it. Of course, this is not to say its a game unto itself, there's a lot of overlap between the tactical and strategic concerns too. You can and should upgrade your deck via an order, but this costs materiel that could be used to build actual armies as well limit your ability to take other action. Spaceships meanwhile bridge the gap between the tactical and the strategic concerns, and in some respects are less developed than land units. Your average marine for example can jump from world to world if they are adjacent, but areas of open space require a ship to cross, so ship roles tend to be transport before battleship. There's also only two ship types per faction, and they use the same Combat Deck as land units. That said, ships do have a greater freedom of movement, and can nuke a site from orbit, if that's the only way to be sure.

Nuts to this

The experience of playing the game does seem to depend on the number of players though. Two player games work very well, and tick along at a relatively fast past; games seeming to take about 80 minutes a player to resolve. As you may recall from my first impressions article however, playing the game with four players proved to be a bit acrimonious at first. Its very easy given how orders work for players to trip each other up, back-stab, or just dogpile on someone, and not always on purpose. Two player games tend to be more straightforward. How much of that was just us learning the game, we made a lot of mistakes, is debatable, but one thing I would never do again is use the introductory map. In normal play, players usually take turns to place map tiles, building up the map in an organic fashion where you can react to other players, but with only one player putting units on a tile. This forms a slight buffer zone between parties, and grants you some control over your borders. If you pay attention, you can at least keep your home tile from adjoining someone else's and being bad neighbours. The introductory map however seems to have been designed to save space in the booklet, with Chaos and Ultramarines intermingled, but with the Orks and Eldar getting uninterrupted columns, added to the right of the map. This means Orks have an advantage in a 3 player game, only to get caught between a rock and hard place in a 4 player. As I play Orks, I have a bias there, but don't use that map. I have only been able to play a single three-player game for comparison, but that did result in a bit of downtime for one player.

The Verdict

Forbidden Stars is a great game, with high production values, only marred by the way it explains itself. Once you get going with it, its excellent. There's loads going on in terms of strategy, tactics and rules mechanics. There doesn't seem to be an “optimal” way to play, its more about being adaptable in the face of an unpredictable universe and learning how to modify your forces to that situation. It is not a game where you have a long term plan of any great detail, its about making compromises and making the best of a bad job. Its all that, and an excellent representation of the setting with really nice gaming pieces. Short of future expansions, this is probably the best boardgame ever associated with 40K, although in saying that, I must acknowledge its immediate problem. Learning to play it is hampered by the writing style, and doing so in a four player games can result in epicentres of chaos and irritation. Then there's the matter of price. As mentioned, I'd say you'd be getting value for money, although there is legitimate and cheaper competition from the likes of Eclipse and Quantum. I own the latter and have played the former, and I would say Forbidden Stars holds it own against those games, and has a lot more personality. Then there's the small fact even at £80, its at least one order of magnitude cheaper than playing 40K proper.

Its a lot of fun, so give it a try. Its a game you agree to play before the day, rather on a whim, but damn, you won't feel that time at all.

Foot notes

1. If you want to troll a 40K forum, suggest that 40K ripped off Starcraft. Write your will first.
2. Worker placement and cooperative games are the styles I tend to find myself playing of late.
3. Like the Chaos faction being the Khorne worshipping World Eaters but having cards for the other gods. Whatev's.

Prototype Watch: Wonder Festival Febuary 2016

So, it was just Wonder Festival, a Japanese convention, and TakaraTomy attended, so its time for another episode of Prototype Watch! Yet more opinions, speculation, and premature evaluation based on pictures other people took. Let's start off with the Optimus Primal prototypes.

The buzz on this is pretty good. Fidelity to the animation is desirably high, and the gimmickry fits the on-screen action, with the possible exception of the light up eyes. I think they put that sort of thing in because they feel they need it to justify the price, not because the character really demands it. Anyway, the only cause for concern here seems to be that the Gorilla mode may not have articulation in the knee, but this is more immediately appealing than Ironhide was. One hopes for a Megatron sooner rather than never. The meat of TakaraTomy's display was however dedicated to the Unite Warriors Combaticons, and therefore giving us our first proper look at Blast Off. A.K.A the toy that inspired this series and I didn't like the look of.

Yeah.......

I'm not seeing a vast amount of improvement here. He looks okay as a limb, but has the proportions of Eggman in robot mode. Its a shame the shuttle mode wasn't on display, or the leg mode. We also got to see Vortex with his retooled rotor blades, which is nice I suppose, but exacerbates the kibble problems of the base mould.

We also found out that these will be in G1 cartoon colours, which was obvious, but not so much in how far they've gone to do it. The combiner guns for Brawl and Swindle are painted to match their bodies, to better replicate the cartoon model of Bruticus. Blast Off also looks a bit off in shuttle mode, colours favouring the robot mode.

It gets odder if you zoom in on the robot modes and look at Brawl. A big chunk of his head seems to have been painted yellow/orange, as he did appear in the cartoon, although he was inconsistent in his regard. Sometimes its his whole forehead that's orange, others its a Gundam style sensor.  Its worth pointing out that there is a bit of detailing on the sculpt that would have done for the latter, but doesn't really allow for the former. Combiner Wars moulds are just are likely to be based off comics and the actual toys as the cartoon, and Brawl is not strongly cartoon. This was so baffling to me, not having seen the show for a while, I thought they'd deliberately invoked a colouring mistake, until someone corrected me.

To each their own, I suppose.

Image Source: Type-R of TFW2005.

Youtube Highlights: Big Issues Then Comics

Here we go folks, here's yet more youtube videos I've found and enjoyed in the past week. Buckle up.


To get the serious stuff out of the way first, SciShow did a video on the horrifying Zika virus.

Regular readers may have noticed an overlap between SciShow and vlogbrothers via Hank Green. Here is his brother John is talking about the gender pay gap

Ever wonder why some comics had a random picture of Spider-Man or whatnot on the cover. NerdSync tells us why.

Speaking of comics, the viral marketing campaign for the new Deadpool movie continues apace, this one from 20th Century Fox UK.

The normally serious and a little dry ComicsExplained also attempted to explain how Deadpool became Iron Man.

On the theme of violence and things I'm looking forward to, a new trailer was released for the new Doom game, seemingly based off E3 footage. As is appropriate, it is HUGELY VIOLENT, so caution is advised. Via Bethesda Softworks.

 


And finally the self-proclaimed Internet Personality Vangelus has done an education video on tightening joints on Transformers. Useful information, which I intend to use myself at some point. Full disclosure and/or claim to fame: I also met the fellow at Botcon 2013, nice guy.

 

A Concise Review of Energon Strongarm In 500 Words Or Less

Pricepoint/Vintage: Basic, 2004.

Modes: Robot and Cybertronian Jeep.

Transformation Style: Basic carformer.
Play Patterns: Robot and car. 5mm weapons. Energon weapons and chip.
Points of Interest: Has no relationship to RID Strongarm, nor has an obvious homage. You can mount a gun on his head.

The Good
Strongarm has a solid balance between robot mode, vehicle mode, and accessories. The jeep mode looks nice, with bright colours, extensive paint, and even an interior. His robot mode is classically an Autobot, and its top heavy build makes him live up to the name. Both modes benefit from the energon weapon pieces, which variously form an articulated crane/gun, a battle axe, and some decorative bits. The engineering is also appropriate for the size, with above average articulation for the line, including “toes” and a waist swivel, which all makes for a toy with good play value.

The Bad

Strongarm's accessories are ageing badly on my example, with cracks showing around a 5mm port, in the manner common to translucent plastic. His vehicle mode suffers from Visible Head Syndrome, requiring his energon parts to obscure. 

The Mediocre
While better than some Unicron Trilogy toys, Strongarm's articulation is dictated by the transformation, and then hampered by the sculpt. The hips for example are balljointed, but as he has car seats for buttocks, there's no backwards movement. He has 12 points of articulation, but its very limited considering where its placed. The robot mode proportions are slightly off, in my eyes, the shoulders being too far back.

The Alternatives
Strongarm got reused a total of six times, depending how you count, meaning that if you don't like the colours, options are there. Most notably, it got used for a Botcon exclusive version of Outback, while the Japanese version has a slightly different head sculpt. Car-themed Autobots are also very easily found, but if all you want is a good Energon basic, look at Battle Ravage.

The Verdict

Strongarm is an unassuming but nicely functional toy. Compared to more modern transformers of similar size, and the Cybertron line that followed immediately after, he is simple and unrefined, but that's a fair distance from saying he's bad. He is something of the metaphorical rough diamond, there's legitimate flaws to take issue with, but there are also merits. That axe, for example. The toy is also quite cheap, so if you like what you see here, I doubt you'll have a bad time with the guy. Just be mindful for that translucent plastic.

Saving Superman

As regular readers may note, I'm not hugely keen on how they seem to be handling Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Its got the look of a disaster. Yes, yes, the film isn't out yet. I'm being a judgemental fanboy. It could be awesome, nobody knows. There are talented people working on it. I will say two things in my defence, however. First off, I don't actually like Superman, so there's no childhood being ruined here. My position is one of detached respect. And secondly, I don't like it when someone is clearly doing it wrong. The sensible response when Man of Steel had a less than stellar reception was to go back to the drawing board, and acknowledge the criticisms. It was not to make a sequel to a quite dour film, and make it darker by putting Batman in it. Nor was drawing inspiration from the “Dark Knight Returns”, or “Death of Superman” plotlines. Nor was allowing this cover for Empire Movie magazine.

Yeah, that's not a pose that inspires hope and awe. Restraining orders? Yes. But not hope and awe. So, in the event that BVS:DOJ fails so hard they have to start again, here's a list of suggestions on how to fix the mess that the cinematic Superman has become.

Go watch some Bruce Timm cartoons

Its well-known at this point that Batman V Superman is a hurried attempt to get a DC cinematic universe up and running in the quickest possible time. Understandable, given Marvel has been so profitable at this, but the folks at Warner Bros. seem to have forgot they already did that on TV. The classic Batman: The Animated Series gave us an entire shared cartoon universe, and eventually the Justice League Unlimited series, arguably the best and most successful comic adaptations until, well, Marvel. That continuity ran for fourteen fricking YEARS! Something about it must have worked. Get yourself a DVD boxset or three, get over any snobbery you may have about cartoons, and take notes.

If you have to be realistic, dump the secret identity
The fact that Clark Kent manages to disguise his role as Superman via glasses is something that's been openly mocked since forever. With the march of technology being what it is, its a façade that would not last 30 seconds, and hasn't been remotely tenable since the home video camera. And lets be honest here, the whole secret-identity-revealed plot point has been done to death. So bypass it completely. Have Supes be based in the Fortress of Solitude, he can still interact with Lois and Jimmy as part of his day job. Make it a commentary on celebrity, his identity revealed before the film even starts. Pop that zit, and deal with the consequences.


Set it in the 30's
Its said that Supes is old fashioned, so play to that strength, and make it a period piece. The secret identity problem largely vanishes, and Superman is just the hero for the Great Depression. Lex Luthor as an evil industrialist in this time makes a crazy amount of sense, too. And speaking of period pieces....

Have him fight racists
Oh, you want Superman to be edgy and dark, do you? You want to match his optimism with dirt? Bring him down to Earth? Well, the radio show version had the titanic balls to take on the Ku Klux Klan in 1946. Seriously, it was almost a journalistic expose, and actually did some good. Be they Nazis, or Donald Trump supporters, squaring off some proper nasties will only reinforce how good Supes is.

Or stop having him fight people
Look, Superman is a physical god, and there's no sensible foe for him to face in a mere punch up. Remember the fight with Zod in Man Of Steel? Did it not get boring? So either go bigger or a lot smaller. Give him a challenge that cannot be resolved by merely punching it. Superman v an earthquake. Superman v an arm-smuggling ring. Superman v famine. Superman v the subtle manipulations of billionaire Lex Luthor. Superman v President Luthor. Not Superman v guy with identical powers again. And if you have to do the alien invasion once more, go full Independence Day.

And Finally, NO MORE KILLING
Seriously folks, can we get over the Superheroes killing people trope please? Especially with blueboy here. Superman has sufficient level of power he does not need to kill anyone, and nor does he have the inclination. That scene with Zod? Should never have happened. DC and Warner Bros: Marvels mocks you on this front. So stop doing it.