#Wargame Reviews

[simonbreeze]

Starting a new read!

🤞 this next book in the series is better than the last and gets back on with the Indomitus Crusade. (It's Guy Haley, so I'm feeling pretty confident 😊).

[tabletopbellhop]

Dragon Dice Review!

A look at the 2 player starter set, Firewalker VS Treefolk from SFR, Inc.

Did you know that the classic TSR dice game, Dragon Dice is still going strong under the watchful eye of SFR Inc.

Learn about how the game has evolved here:

[cannibalhalflinggaming]

"

I toss down a disc of nanobots that quickly assembles itself into a squad beacon, sending its beam of light up from the balcony of the building I’m in and into the sky, before looking through the scope of my sniper rifle. A squadmate, Ultra Rare, is trying to 1v1 an assault trooper using only her knuckleblades, and I sigh wistfully; we used to be an item before I accidentally got her demoted. I fire a shot, miss terribly, and am immediately targeted by the assault trooper’s team and ripped to shreds by machine gun fire.

Reassembled in orbit, switching from a force recon loadout to that of an engineer, I crash onto the balcony in a drop pod next to the beacon and the nanodust that was the smear I left behind. I exchange greetings and a salute with another squadmate – “Butler.” “Setback.” – who walked into the room while I was dead, and I look down into the courtyard. An enemy mech is literally stomping all over an allied squad – what a bunch of blueberries. I raise my anti-materiel rifle and blast off one of its arms – and am splattered across the wall behind me by the weapons in its other one. 

I’m considering another drop pod, when suddenly I schlorp back together, on the ground next to Goblin, who apparently got splattered as well at some point. Between us is a spent revive grenade, and standing over us is Butler. More salutes, more greetings. “Setback. Goblin.” “Butler.”

Just another day on PLANET FIST."

[trve-grimdark]

Condensed Warhammer The Old World Review:

The good:

Mix of iconic 6th-8th rules mechanics

New rules and updated reference organization

Lots of customization between wargear and unit loadout

Nicely fleshed out unit organization and types

Better use of command groups

Cut back on hyper meta min/max style armies

The Bad:

Magic phase is needlessly complicated and spread out

The Magic is an adhoc mess of various lores jammed together

Some new rules (like 3 types of retreats) get over baked

Combined Character+Mount profile is nonsensical

Game was rushed and lacking some of the promised lore flavor

The Conclusion:

It's not perfect and the bag is more mixed than a twitter profile's identity flags and politics, but I got to say its a good game structure over all. Enough nostalgia mixed with new freshness that only gets in the way occasionally, very obviously made to give the crowd who missed out on WHF back in the day their time up at bat, while giving us older players something new yet familiar to play with.

If your the type who prizes old style army crunch with rules that don't assume your a moron who just walked into the store off the street, and you can spare the time to grapple with some of the needless over bake, I would say this game is certainly worth trying, its just WHF enough you might think its 1999 again while your playing it.

[kirbyddd]

why does wikipedia have the review from Games Workshop's own magazine about its own game as critical reception

[chimeracreations-art]

Hey hey my newest video discussing and talking about the latest battletech novel elements of treason: honor just dropped.

It a long one but I think it an interesting case of flaws and positives of the book that is flawed.

[josephvonsternberg]

Ah, it is almost all warhammer now! Only some hellboy abominations left.  I am glad how I managed to grunge up my deathwatch marines. The look the part (effed up warrior king monks of a bygone age, almost forgot their old chapters, hammering out their colours) at last, I feel. Matted by varnish then, even more. And look. A white chaos Knight! :D #warhammer #scalemodel #scifiart #darkart #killteam #warhammer40k #paintingwarhammer #miniaturepainting #wargaming #warmongers #tabletopgaming #instaart #shelterinhobby #horusheresy #spacemarines #boardgames #philosphy #Lifehack #review #eightpoint #spiegelbergs #HELLBOY #mantic #hellboyboardgame https://www.instagram.com/p/ClIuI87NFR1/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[tzekkaz]

Review:Speedpaints

Eager to try out The Army Painter Speedpaints I found some old Viking models I had never done anything with. I tried different methods of undercoating to see what I could do with them.

I tried plain white undercoat, zenithal highlighting and grey undercoat. below are the end results,

The top model is the one i did using grey undercoat, the middle picture is plain white and the bottom one is zenithal highlighting.

The paints are very watery but strong in pigment, I have been pleasantly surprised by the skin tones and the metallics, the rest I am not so impressed with. The watery nature of the Speedpaints means that there is little room for error. Personally I would wait for one colour to dry before applying the next colour, this I have rarely had to do with regular paints. i am not entirely impressed with the Speedpaints but I am not going to give up on them yet, I will try to add them to my arsenal of painting supplies and techniques. i think I may have not given them a fair chance. I will try painting something else in them. I think they have the potential to be really good and useful to painters, particularly those just starting out or the real champion painters, for middle of the road painters such as myself I am not sure how useful they are going to be.

That is all for now people,

until next time

Happy hobbying

[reviewsclown]

Wargames (1983)

Solid movie, no notes. Kid is a hacker and has fun hacking, hacks into something way above his paygrade and hijinx ensues. A very subtle movie about how war is bad, and perhaps also that automating things that require a human mind could also be bad? that's like tertiary though, it's entirely about how war, specifically the cold war, is bad.

Movie looked really good, but I guess it's not like they had to invent new things for set design, it's just a military control center. Not a lot of depth to the characters really, not like they have arcs or anything. But also not like they really need arcs it felt like? it works as is.

The final scene, which is the famous one and what the movie is most popular for. is pretty good, running all the simulations at 4x speed trying to find outcomes. It was very cool. WOPR in general, was pretty cool.

Final review: movie is good, you should watch it.

[thejaymo]

Little Wars of the Worlds | 2405

A review of HG Wells’ most important work, Little Wars. The book that changed the way table top war games were played and paved the way for the development of role-playing and modern war games.

April 20, 2024 | Permanently Moved 🔊 | Review 📃

[javiersreviews]

ROBLOX: Multicrew Tank Combat 4 Fan Review

Well, I didn't expect to be writing a Roblox game review of all things. But, it's been fresh on my mind so I should get this out before it fizzles out again.

(Credit to: The official game page)

Up until recently, tanks and tank combat in video games, are extremely stale. The peak of mainstream tank combat used to be 1-2 player operated vehicles that shot at each other until one of their health bars hit zero (Cough cough, Battlefield and World of Tanks). Thankfully, there are games that provide much larger depth for this particular niche. Some of these namely being War Thunder, which attempts to bring to life the details and parts that go into the working machine, though not with a multiplayer aspect, Enlisted, which has both specific modules *and* playable crew members and a few others. Multicrew attempts to reach this level of depth and more, while cutting out a reasonable amount of the not-so-fun stuff. Multicrew's biggest selling point (though it is a free game), is the teamwork aspect. Every vehicle is only as effective as the people, and the amount of people operating within it and it's this cooperative aspect that the game excels at. So, what is Multicrew? Multicrew, or MTC4 is a tank/vehicle combat game which focuses on the teamwork aspect, and the players operating each role in the vehicles. Every tank has its own loader, gunner, commander, driver and (sometimes) bow gunner. Although some of the roles seem rather boring, the game tries its best to reward vehicles for having all of the roles filled.

Gameplay

Unlike the first review, I'm not sure where to start. There's a lot of layers to the simplest things so I will try to break things down in the beginning, and try and bring it all together towards the end.

Vehicle Selection: Though the game is lacking in some areas, and is still subject to heavy change and development, it has a lot to offer. The vehicles you use and fight against are based on what era and team you're on. There are currently two major era's, Modern and World War II. Currently, if I counted correctly, there are roughly SIXTY-PLUS PLAYABLE AND FUNCTIONAL VEHICLES currently available to MTC4. Modern contains modern and late-cold-war vehicles. Characterized by sleek, low-to-the-ground designs, they have quick speed, stabilizers, auto loaders and firepower the game mode is fairly fast pace. Currently the vehicles are not segregated based on teams since there aren't enough vehicles to afford separating them (So each team can get western and soviet tanks). However in the coming updates this is sure to change.

On the other hand, WWII is characterized by the glamorous (and sometimes not so glamorous) tanks and vehicles of the war. Unlike Modern, the vehicles have questionable designs, slower speeds, rarely any stabilizers, no auto loaders and firepower is purely based on what rank they are. From a distance this sounds worse than Modern, but trust me, it's just as fun. It trades fast pace for slow and methodical movement, where every move counts. Cold War is not out yet, and probably won't be for a while but last time I checked, the devs are hard at work on this gamemode. Since it isn't out, I can't really give the fundamentals like the previous. I suspect it will mix the slow methodical pace of WWII with the exciting technology of the modern era.

Ballistics, Module system and Model Accuracy: Let me get this out of the way before I get into the meat. Tank Nerds, you're in luck! The devs put an insane amount of effort to make sure that all tanks included in the game are both real and anatomically accurate to their real life counterparts. So, no, no goofy dimensions and fake tanks. Also, this game has a ballistic system akin to war thunder, no health bars here. I'll talk later about the issues, since this is a roblox game so the engine isn't really optimized for that type of mechanic however it still achieves it's goal. Shells have a chance to ricochet, non-pen and penetrate their target based on the surfaces relative thickness and angle. They can damage modules just like war thunder too, transmissions, breach, barrel, and ammo can detonate when hit as well.

(Diagram of the Tiger II-Porche, Courtesy of the MTC Discord Server)

Classes:

There are two main classes, Crewmembers and Infantry and they help keep the gameplay dynamic. There's also the engineer however I'd argue he's just another type of Infantry.

Infantry:

Yes, this is a tank fighting game. But the need for machine guns would be completely lost and honestly the game would become too easy. Infantry have no capacity to crew combat vehicles (only trucks and whatnot). They have rifles and anti-armor weapons like bazookas and anti-tank rifles. They are best for capturing points on the map without being spotted and keeping vehicle crews on their toes. Rather than directly face their foe they mainly rely on stealth, hiding and bushes and buildings until they can comfortably engage their target.

The Crew:

Crewmen make up the majority of the team, which makes sense since you need quite a few of them to crew a vehicle. There are typically five roles (though only four for modern) for the average tank. The Driver; The legs of the vehicle, and technically the most important. The driver is responsible for not only getting the vehicle from A to B, but also good positioning in combat. Most games will boil the driving aspects down to simply pushing one or two of the WASD keys, and while you still need to do that in MTC4, they add an extra layer to driving. This extra layer is the gearbox, which, of course, tanks are not automatics (crazy). So, while driving you'll have to finick with the gears via pushing q and e (very immersive). Inexperienced drivers have a hard time maneuvering and will often stall the tank if not careful, in which more mistakes will be made in the heat of combat. The gearbox system helps distinguish experienced drivers from the inexperienced and that difference can make or break the crew as a whole. The Gunner; The gunner is responsible not just for pulling the trigger, but also knowing weakspots, range finding and having very good communication with the rest of his crew. I'll explain the last part later but for now I can talk about weakspots and rangefinding. Taking advantage of weak spots is both a matter of skill and knowledge, as often they are hard to hit and need to be known in the first place. Machine gun ports, the underskirt (Armor between the inside and the tracks, underneath the thicker side armor... Yes, it's real terminology) and other tiny weakpoints that vary from tank-to-tank. These can all be learned and memorized but I recommend you use youtube videos to learn rather than just trial and error. Range finding is more of just a part of the shooting process. To range find in MTC4 you *very* realistically have to hold down v and wait. It then comes back to you with the exact distance, even if the vehicle doesn't have a range finder. This isn't as hard to get down as weak points, but it's a necessity when in mid-long range combat. You'll also want to have a good short term memory, as you'll have to remember the range you put in since the text disappears after a moment. Most tanks have a coaxial machine gun (machine gun that runs parallel to the main gun) however only experienced gunners can use it effectively as it's a bit awkward trying to switch between the cannon and mg in tense situations and also aiming it at infantry is tough since it's slower than the top MG.

The Loader; Keeps the artillery fed in a timely manner and a necessity for making the tank into an efficient weapon. In function, you simply load the chamber of the main cannon and also fill other roles like repairs while the more important roles continue their duties in combat. Many think it's a pretty boring job but I massively disagree. The devs try their hardest to make sure the class is as entertaining as possible and I personally think they actually do a good job. Once a shell is discharged from the piece, a pop-up for ammo comes up. Typically the gunner or commander will tell you which shell to load though if they forget or aren't there, it's your duty to load the right one. There are three main shell types for WWII and Modern. For WWII, there's APHEC, AP and HE. APHEC stands for Armor Piercing High Explosive Capped. These rounds are jack-of-all-trades and will be the main ammo used for most light to medium armor. It'll make it though most armor and has a small amount of explosive filler which will (theoretically) explode once inside the enemy tank and damage crew members. This filler also helped detonate fuel tanks and ammunition. The cap can be hard to explain. It's a soft cap on the tip of the shell which helps correct the trajectory of the shell when encountering angled/sloped armor which helps counteract their deflective nature. AP stands for just Armor Piercing. It's useful for penning what normally are impenetrable targets however it's post-pen damage is very lacking and it deals low damage to modules like ammo and fuel. Additionally it isn't capped so it actually suffers more with sloped armor compared to its APHEC counterpart. To make things simple, shoot at un-angled thick targets and aim directly for important modules like where the crew is and ammo. HE stands for just High Explosive. These shells have very low penetration, and are not recommended for taking on medium-high armored targets. Historically and in the game it's primarily for destroying fortifications and infantry as it has a *very* large explosive radius. Can usually kill infantry from behind cover and doesn't need to directly hit them. If your gun is big enough, you can shoot the ground next to you if you're getting swarmed by infantry and they'll likely get killed by the blast. For modern you get APDSFS, HEAT and HE. APFSDS, or Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot Fin-Stabilized Is a finned dart which is inside of a sabot. The sabot is a case that sticks with the main dart to collect thrust when inside the barrel, but flies off the main projectile once it hits the air. This helps the thin armor piercing dart with aerodynamics. Incredible at penetrating most targets, even at rough angles but low post-pen damage. HEAT stands for High-Explosive Anti-Tank. It has an equal amount of penetration to the APDSFS round and has an even higher post-pen damage, as it has more spal (flak created from hitting the tank armor). Issue is it's very finnicky. The way HEAT works is the detonation upon hitting the target. This detonation shoots another bullet and since it's point blank, the bullet will easily pen. But if you hit spaced armor the shell will detonate a few inches away from the main armor and fail to pen since the droppoff of the bullet fired from the shell itself loses momentum so quickly. So be careful about hitting the spaced armor or not. HE stands for high explosive and I already explained that. I know I didn't do a great job explaining the ammo types but I recommend you look up videos on it if you *really* want to know, as this is real world stuff and super cool.

After selecting the ammo type you wish for an animation will play of your character loading the gun however some and most tanks don't have this yet. While loading you get a little minigame pop-up. Think of the star wars (EA) battlefront reload where you can skip part of the reload by hitting E at the right time. While loading the breach (chamber of the tank gun) the minigame pop-up shows a red bar filling up the empty space in what looks like the loading screen for a download. Once at around 65% the red bar will reach a small yellow line. If you hit e while the end of the red bar is covering it, you can speed up the rest of the reload, giving an edge during combat. It may not seem hard but an experienced loader can, similar to the other members, make or break the crew. You have to be paying attention 24/7, communicate with the gunner and commander, load the millisecond the gun discharges, get the timing right in the minigame to get that extra shot off in time, help spot outside of combat and help repair. If you find loader boring, you aren't doing enough for the crew. The Commander; Another essential role of the vehicle and technically the only role you'll find in every tank. With this crew member in particular, the context of whether you are playing with friends and playing with randoms is important. When playing with people you know or at least are tying to be professional, (not that playing with friends automatically makes you a try-hard, in fact most are idiots like me) the commander is the glue that keeps the crew well organized and focused on their job. There's this concept of crew-over-load where if there aren't enough crew members crewing a vehicle they will be overwhelmed by the basic tasks of managing the vehicle. The commander helps keep this in order. He will be telling the driver where and how to maneuver, the gunner where and when to aim and the loader what ammunition to use. Imagine the driver having to be the commander. He has to worry about driving all the while directly co-coordinating with his gunner and loader. Same with the others. Second to this the commander is usually afforded a machine gun which has a faster traverse speed as well as higher horizontal and vertical traverse in general. This is INSANELY important for dispatching sneaky infantry that the main gunner might not be able to deal with with his little cumbersome coax being attached to the cannon. Historically the commander was also meant to be a dedicated spotter. He has what is called a cupola which is a little hatch sticking out of the top of the turret. This tube is full of bullet-proof glass and helps him see all around the tank whereas his other crew members get a few view ports next to having to stick their head out (not optimal during combat). Although in MTC4 you don't have to worry about this aspect since the game has third person view, simplifying the issue massively. Untiltheyadd1stpersononlyofcourse. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that since out of combat you don't have much to do other than look around, you should be co-coordinating with the gunner with looking for targets. If you're playing with strangers then you telling others what to do is going to be off-putting for some which is understandable. so stick to the other specified duties and most will like you :). Bow gunner (WWII Only); In the front of the hull, there's some sort of machine gun which can only aim towards the front. This is probably the most niche role, as infantry will try to attack from other angles anyway. The Bow gunner is more valuable for his eyesight and ability to replace other roles than your gun.

At this point I've begun to realize this isn't actually a review anymore so I'm going to try and wrap this up. This is a bit more complicated so I'll try and take this on with a list rather than just another paragraph (cause I think we have plenty of those)

Things to note while in and out of combat:

If your vehicle is fast, capitalize on this as fast vehicles are fairly hard to hit and it allows you a window to move to a better position while under fire. Just because you're using what's labeled a heavy tank, doesn't make you invincible. Treat armor like a second chance at life rather than guaranteed protection. The larger the gun, the longer the reload. Be mindful of reload rates as they vary from vehicle-to-vehicle. If you don't have a loader available, choose a vehicle that doesn't have or need a loader position. If you can't just choose a vehicle with an already short reload.

Drivers; Always try to present the front of your tank towards the enemy, as the slides and back are easily penetrated by most ammo.

Gunners; Be giving constant feedback particularly to your driver. Tell him what position the vehicle is currently in is optimal for aiming. Tell him when it isn't.

Loaders & Bow-Gunners; Be ready to replace any important roles while still efficiently doing your job. Commander; Keep your head on a swivel and keep an eye out for other dangers during combat, as your gunner and driver are plenty occupied.

As soon as there's a fire, call out who should do it. If there's a need to return fire, the gunner and loader should remain at their stations while the other crew handle it. If you couldn't tell by how vague I've told things, a lot of the strategies are employed on a case-by-case basis and it's really up to you and your crew to figure it out in the moment. There's no room for lone wolfs and mutes. Everyone is forced to communicate constantly and perform their job the best they can as if even one person isn't pulling their weight it will quickly show. The teamwork aspects of this game are a freaking 10/10 and only brought down by their player base aspects. I could write on and on about the tanks as well. The amount in development and already in the game is insane and it's just another aspect that gives the game flavor. You could make all the vehicles the same and the teamwork aspect alone would still carry it but the addition of the many, real world tanks is the cherry on top.

Technical Issues:

One massive downside with the game is, it's a Roblox minigame. This will affect other aspects of the game which I'll get to but for here it's mainly the Roblox engine. Roblox is designed to be (fairly) optimized and easy to use but there are some areas it isn't good for, particularly shooters. This game has a lot of layers in terms of its technical design and even though they work *very* hard to make sure the game is as optimized as possible for players and the game engine, it still gets bogged down. Sometimes rounds won't penetrate the easiest target, and sometimes you'll see a machine gun go through the front plate of a heavy tank, though these are reasonably rare occurrences.

Playerbase Issues:

Roblox is mainly played by young children. Young children have terrible communication skills. If you don't like this, play with friends instead. (I mean playing with randoms is already rough to begin with)

Also, there's helicopters but I really don't care write about them. (Tanks >>>>>>> Aircraft). If you want to learn more....playmtc4todayit'sfreeonrobloxgogoplayit I deeply apologize to anyone who read my schizophrenic ramblings up to this point. I promise the next review will have some semblance of structure.

TLDR

MTC4 Is one of the most comprehensive vehicle shooters out there, next to games like War Thunder. It goes the extra mile, not only does it have accurate and to-scale real world tanks and vehicles that can be played, but it has the selling point of each crew member being a real player. The game does an amazing job at making each role in the vehicles fun and engaging while forcing you to coordinate with each other. Every breathing moment of combat is extremely tense. The amount of factors you have to think about is immeasurable. MTC4 is the true, real authentic tankery experience, all completely free on Roblox. 7/10, good job Grand Hawk.

[simonbreeze]

Dawn of Fire Book 4: Throne of Light Book 4

By Guy Haley

What's it about: 

The Indomitus Crusade continues its war across the stars. The primarch Roboute Guilliman has finally broken through the orkish threat bedevilling the sectors near Fenris, and makes ready to push on his bid to stabilise the Imperium Sanctus – but old and bitter foes stand in his way.

Kor Phaeron, the Dark Cardinal, threatens the previously stable core of the Segmentum Solar. Waves of rebellion instigated by his infiltrating priests suggest an imminent, large-scale invasion by the Word Bearers Legion. Worse yet, the Dark Cardinal's warriors are targeting the Black Ships, threatening to starve Terra of the pyskers the Emperor needs to survive.

Through this turbulent warzone Inquisitor Rostov continues his search for the Hand of Abaddon. Yet when strange, miraculous visions are traced back to the astropathic relay on Srinagar, his quest is diverted – for the visions foretell hope for the Imperium, a hope the fanatical worshippers of Chaos will do anything to snuff out…

Why read it:

Guy Haley is back! Not only that, he's putting the series back on track as he focus on the Indomitus Crusade and its core of characters.

What could have been better:

As a big fan of the Black Templars and also the Sisters of Silence, would really have liked a bit more story time for these guys. However, there is a lot going on in this book, and the time dedicated to them is short, but fantastic.

Favourite bit:

It has to be Guy Haley bringing the focus back to the main story and characters. The last book, wolf Time, was such a side step, and I really didn't get well on with story. It was fantastic to be back in the thick of things again.

And finally...

This is a really solid book and a very enjoyable read. Guy Haley gets things back on track and progressing with lots of action and great character moments.

[aroundtable]

Oggi scopiremo assieme le meccaniche di uno dei giochi da tavolo che vi ho presentato nelle score edizioni del tg table: Marabunta, piccolo grande roll & write di controllo territoriale. Un boardgame davvero interessante che come sempre non ho potuto lasciare sugli scaffali degli amici di Hirtemis.

Con le giornate che si approssimano al bello è il momento di cominciare a racimolare, quelli che io definisco boardgame da zainetto: giochi da tavolo super portatili, accattivanti, adatti a tutti e Marabunta è proprio tutto ciò.

Marabunta è un roll & write in cui dovremo fare più punti rispetto ai nostri avversari, acquisendo cup cake, aprendo le casse con i punti ma soprattutto ottenendo il controllo di territori: ad ogni turno il primo giocatore scoprirà una delle tessere del gioco e dovrà lanciare 6 dadi, dividerà tessera e dadi in due riserve che però potrà scegliere l'altro giocatore. I numeri sui dadi ci permetteranno di ottenere il controllo del territorio, scrivendo sui territori MA SOLO rispettando la regola di adiacenza, che ci costringerà a scrivere i nostri numeri solo accanto a numeri che abbiamo già scritto noi stessi. Altro interessantissimo twist è il valore dei territori, che Knizia ha deciso di far dipendere dall'andamento della partita stessa da parte dei giocatori!

Marabunta si è rivelato un ottimo "war game" in roll & write per 2 giocatori, con delle meccaniche ben ottimizzate che risulta chiaro nel flusso di gioco sin dalle prime partite, ma che non risulta mai banale, grazie alle intuizioni di game design di Knizia, il tutto in un boardgame che potrete portare con voi ovunque!

Marabunta è un boardgame roll & write per 2 giocatori, consigliato dai 10 anni in su, con partite dalla durata di una mezz'ora edito da @AsmodeeItalia .

[misternizz]

55 Days at Peking playtest

BLUF: a nice, simple tactical game of the siege of the Siege of the Legations in Peking, 1900. The most dramatic event of the Boxer Rebellion. 55 Days at Peking box As I mentioned in my post about Historicon 2023, one of my recent acquisitions is a purchase of 55 Days at Peking, from The Historical War Game Company, published by Blue Panther Games. Right up front, I’ll say I do love their…

[cadmusfly]

addendum problem:

I am really into the napoleonic era but most fantasy media and tabletop roleplaying settings prefer to pastiche earlier eras

And also the ones that are napoleonic are British

problem when i was primarily obsessing over age of sail stuff: there's all this good pirate media around but my heart is with the navy and i want to read/watch naval media about fucked up boat men

problem now i am primarily obsessing over dead frenchmen: there's some good media about the napoleonic wars but they are pretty much all very british and my heart is with the franch empire and i want to read media about fucked up frenchmen

and also i only know english

[vixensdungeon]

The weird thing about reading old editions of (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons is that you often feel like you're reading part of a conversation you're not entirely privy to. For example, the original edition never explains how percentile dice work, because you're just sort of supposed to know that from playing miniatures wargames, duh.

Or when the original Players Handbook makes all these statements about the bard that make no sense unless you've read the issue of The Strategic Review where the class originally appeared.

Or when the Dungeon Masters Guide brings up how you shouldn't just roll 3d6 in order for your ability scores, which you might not have known to do anyway unless you played a previous version of the game.

Or when 2nd Edition spends a lot of words defending the designers' decision to make player characters weaker by making 3d6 in order for ability scores the default again and it's actually cool if your character's stats are garbage, trust me.