A Hobby Update

By: Dozer

This has been a wild ride of a year.

Infinity launched a global campaign in collaboration with Beasts of War Strike Zone: Wotan. They also got out their first fiction product; a manga titled Outrage. It was also very good. While their second two player boxset Operation: Red Veil continues to do well.

Games Workshop has released the hotly anticipated Warhammer 40,000 - 8th Edition to a fanfare of reviews that normally start with admittance that they left the game a few editions ago and they've only played a bit here and there with last edition. Most of the review I've watched and read have been positive and that's a good thing to hear for the corner stone of the Tabletop Miniature Wargame hobby.

Knight Models released their Flash and Arrow rules expansion for the Batman Miniatures game. They followed it up with a new two player starter set and news of a second expansion that is currently on pre-order and based on the Arkham video games.

Warmachine and Hordes are settling into 3rd edition after a really rocky start. The forces books are finally coming along. The CID or community led development and testing is about to churn out its first project a source book on Cygnar's Trenchers led by a new Siege! Cards are no longer packaged with products. Lastly No Quarter will change from a magazine to a full on regular released sourcebook similar to the way Pathfinder produces campaigns in installments.

Dropfleet Commander finally started showing up after a crazy Kickstarter. Guildball is starting it's 3rd season and released a two player starter called Guild Ball: Kickoff. Osprey Publishing's game Frostgrave is about to receive their next main expansion... you get the idea. I'm only scratching the surface. Our hobby has blown up and we are deep into our golden age of gaming.

My summer has not been as free as I'd have liked. Family is moving away while other parts of my family are growing. I and most of the contributors here at Canadian Tabletop Gamer are going to GENCON 50 in August.

I have plenty of work to do regarding my Nomads and having them ready for GENCON but a few things have been posted over the last couple of days and I felt inspired to bust open a new post.

Batman Miniatures - Parliament of Owls

My experience with Batman Miniatures has been a one sided experience. The game looks brilliant. Mechanically it has a neat take on ranged combat, objectives, and lighting. Seriously this game has got lighting down pat. I've only played a single demo game which was enough for me to pick up a few minis.

My relationship with Batman is also strange and antagonistic. My favorite story arc was Dark Knight, Dark City by Peter Milligan. Outside of the odd story arc here and there, Nightwing and Batgirl (Casandra Cain) were my favorite following by Robin. Batman was always boring until Scott Snyder came along and took me on the longest Batman ride of my life starting with the Court of Owls.

So I picked up everything Court of Owls. I picked up both sets: The Court of Owls and Court of Owls Crew. I still need to pick up the Gotham Butcher and hopefully they will make a Talon (Calvin Rose) miniature. Now 'I still need to pick up' is a silly statement. All of my minis are unpainted and un-assembled and yet this new Parliament of Owls set get's shown off and I want to pick it up right away.

Three new Talons and a new sidekick - the High Court Lady. The Court of Owls always felt like it didn't have enough minis compared to everything else in the game so it's nice to see them get some more support in the game. I think my plan post GENCON is paint up all my Owls and then ask teh local group to run a few games for me.

Infinity - Outrage

I loved the Manga. I'm glad I snagged the pre-order that came with the fancy mini of the main character Knauf. When this leaked online I was floored. First off this is a MERCs faction box the first of it's kind. It also gives me hope that the MERCs will be getting their own faction rules sooner rather than later. Maybe alongside Aristiea! the next game for Infinity that will be seen by the public for the first time at GENCON.

The minis look great. There is a character for each faction - almost. Nakadai Shunya is a JSA Ninja who looks almost like an Oniwaban in the comic. Emily Handleman is a PanO agent. Vania Nevski is a Dog Soldier for Ariadna. Uhahu is a Nomad hacker and Jethro works with the Druze (so a Haqq). Only Beba has not 'faction' ties outside of her TAG.

Now that I've started my Infinity painting and am churning out minis, I look forward to snag the Outrage character box. They will be perfect for the Infinity RPG when it finally comes out and the minis look great.

With GENCON around the corner I was really surprised to get as inspired as I did with these new bits of information in such a saturated time in our Hobby. I'll keep you posted as I prep for GENCON and get ready for another crazy season at the table.

- Cheers

Dozer