Tony Carnevale, Tom Chick, and Bruce Geryk on Weird West, solitaire World War II, and minor Martin Wallace. Also, the logistics of boardgaming, how to Advanced Squad Leader, and why Too Many Bones is called Too Many Bones.
For Shadow of Brimstone miniature storage , I glued a 2x1 piece of MDF to same sized piece of sheet metal and painted it. Then glued small 2mm rare earth magnets to the bottom of all the minis so I could have an easily transportable platform to move them around that they wouldn’t fall off of. Here’s a video I made for a friend of what my entire Shadows of Brimstone Forbidden Fortress kickstarter stuff looks like on a finished version with me doing a goofy voice . Actually had to make 2 for all that stuff. You can pick them up and hold them upside down and nothing falls off.
It’s great to hear your impressions on SoB Tom. I was curious on your experience. I look forward to updates.
Shadows of Brimstone is a pretty unique game. And yes, it’s shelf footprint is huge. I am surprised you have gone this far into board gaming without Plano boxes. Those are great, but so are options at crafting stores such a Michael’s or Joanne’s Fabrics. If you are poster board building inclined, there are good solutions too. Beyond these though, if you have a local plastic store, I’d suggest checking it out. For me it’s Tap’s Plastic. These stores are usually in industrial parts of town and are sort of like a lumber store for plastic. Not only do they have all kinds of things for containers or counters (and way cheaper than Plano), but you can make or have custom made fairly useful items. I made 3D asteroids for X-wing and I have custom covers that I lay over my table to help static elements of games stay put with moving or stacking elements easier to manipulate above. If you have a store like that, I’d suggest going in and letting your imagination wander.
On Brimstone itself, it really is a go big or don’t go game. I think you made the right choice.
I will offer that it’s not just random bags of plastic hit points to punch. Part of what is neat about Brimestone is the non-combat weird west. Most tiles has a special a random (card draw), non-random (advanced rule for the tile), or both story encounter that adds a condition, story beat, horror check, or whatever. I also like how the horror check track complements the non-plastic threats. It all just folds together to make Brimestone more crawly than other crawls.
On the subject of getting Lovecratf wrong, I agree. I like it sometimes, as I like combat games. However too many properties just use it to insert the popular public domain baddies. I have 1.0 of a game getting a new release called Machina Arcana. It is a Steampunk Lovecraftian dungeon crawler (or dungeon escape-r is more like it). It carries more sense of fear as the baddies can be fought, but really shouldn’t as they are much superior to the puny humans. It has chapters, story cards, and a horror clock system sort of like Brimestone that all work. The designer is really into theme and even offers a sound track to set the dark mood. Maybe it’s worth checking out toas a more Lovecraftian Lovecraft.
The models after the 2 base sets get better and better. Their newest stuff is excellent.
A friend of mine has this, and we’ve played it a couple times. It’s a neat game but it does take a while (even two player), and it is really unforgiving.
And I listened to this podcast, and I really just want to tell you all one more time. You do not need the Broken Token organizer for Gloomhaven. Plano boxes are more than sufficient. This is doubly ironic given Geryk’s love for Plano boxes earlier in the episode.
Yep. That’s what we use too. That and a folder with separators to split the map parts per letter.
Works fine for us. We might still get an organiser at some point as we’re getting a lot of gaming hours out of Gloomhaven.
My wife has even just taken up miniature painting to enhance the experience. So will likely be worth the investment given how much we like it.
Plano for Gloomhaven?? OMG
I’ll have to take a picture. Works fine. BGG even has print templates for stickers for the compartments on specific plano models.
Then you have to store the counters outside the box!!!
No, they all fit in the box. But like he said, I also use an accordion folder for the map tiles. Honestly, it’s better that way, as you can keep them in alphabetical order to find them quickly. Do you keep the map tiles in a pose pile in the box using the BT organizer? That sounds like hell.
I’d like pics as well! I plan on digging back into Gloomhaven soon-ish, but first I need to apply the logistical skillz I’ve developed with Shadows of Brimstone. Any visual aids from you guys who haven’t been suckered into coughing up $90 to Broken Token would be much appreciated.
-Tom
We had this discussion already, including pics!
Yep, the Plano boxes continue to be amazing/perfect.
“It feels like multiple lite games thrown together so why not just go play one of those other games?”
That’s how I felt about Root and why I cooled off on it. The cats are playing Scythe lite. The birds are playing Twilight Imperium lite. The alliance is playing Twilight Struggle lite. The vagabond is playing Mage Knight lite.
I could see how some might enjoy it, but I’m still scratching my head why there’s still a hotness craze going for it.
Hey guys! I first got hip to your site when you covered Chaos Reborn, but felt really compelled to sign up to see if you guys might be interested in covering an upcoming dungeon crawler.
Essentially, it’s looking to be there best game yet, and I thought it’d be cool to see your guys’ take on it.
Not affiliated with them in any ways. Just a thought that crossed my mind when i read that tweet.
Take care!
From my perspective, it just tells really cool COIN like stories more than anything else. Although I’m not particularly crazy about the multiple lite game idea on paper, I felt that it does a pretty great job of conveying the theme of each of the archtypes that each faction represents.
That said, the actual mechanical aspects of this game don’t lend them that well to that really rich strategy and optimizing of plays, which I can see disappointing many.
Aww, you got me all excited about Altar Quest, but it’s one of those game that’s not only isn’t available yet, but it hasn’t even started its Kickstarter campaign. I hate getting excited about things that are least a year out. :(
Here’s an URL, by the way:
Thanks for the heads-up, Anjovi. Now to put it out of my mind until it’s available…
-Tom
Sorry Tom! I shouldn’t have extended the suffering as I did. xD
That said, it looks like their taking last minute pre-orders for their latest kickstarter for street masters. A good looker as well (though I’m saving my cash for this new altar quest that they’re coming out with)
Otherwise, they have their “heroes of terrinoth” card game that they released with fantasy flight games. I’ve been enjoying that one lately.
I’m intrigued by that, but it sounds like it’s a loosey-goosey attempt at leaning away from boardgaming into lite RPGing. Is that accurate?
-Tom
I don’t think i’d consider it an RPG lite as much as I’d call it a Dungeon Crawler lite…a sort of attempt to take the vibe of a dungeon crawler and distill it into a card game. (That said, it doesn’t really play like a card game in the sense of it’s not really deck building, doing hand management + combo plays, etc.)
The main problem that I’ve found with the game is it’s potential…By that, I mean that the core system is so beautifully crafted that they could add a mechanic to really take home the narrative/procedural story telling, but as of now, it’s a pretty nifty puzzle game with a dungeon crawler feel to it.
It is pretty great at how it emulates the feel of going from location to location. Especially with the peril mechanic that gives every quest its own feel. That said, you could probably watch a letsplay to get a feel of whether you’d like it or not.