So over the past weekend, I went to a boardgame meetup in Redondo Beach and met a couple of cool boardgamers. And when it comes to finding new players, I'm as giddy as a little girl. We ended up playing a pretty intense 4 player MGS Risk game and was plenty fun getting some new people into the mix.

Btw, before I jump into the review, I just want to let everyone know that there's going to be another meetup coming Feb 18 in Redondo Beach. And fyi, I will DEFINITELY be there and would love to meet anyone in the South Bay area who actually read small blog of mine :). Follow the link here for more info: http://www.meetup.com/Beach-Cities-Board-Card-Gaming/events/49136722/

We started off the game by randomizing our territories via the territory cards instead of the classic cherry picking style. Our turn order started with me (Snake/Yellow), then Jeff (Ocelot/Purple), Aaron (Eva/Green), and finally Brenden (Raiden/Blue). The board setup was pretty spread out with no clear advantage for anyone.

The game started off pretty simple with a few decisive conquests. I started my turn taking South America, fortifying in Brazil and utilizing the advantage of going first, I managed to easily get 18 territories to snatch the major objective and a guaranteed Drebin card as the Reward. Purple dominated the mid-hemisphere, taking Africa and domineering his presence in the bottom half of Europe, also obtaining the objective for taking over 4 cities. Green asserted his influence over North America pretty hard, but failed to allocate enough units for a two-pronged conquest on N. America; he didn't invest enough units to take out Alaska and just came shy of full control, missing the take over North America objective (he eventually got it next round). Blue played his turn steady and took over Australia and also a few territories in Asia. Raiden made quick work of any opposing forces left in Australia.

The game really picked up the next couple rounds. I reinforced my position in South America trying to hold onto my bonus and only did a small poke here and there just so I can get my territory card. Purple ended up going up towards the rest of Europe, clinching the corresponding objective and furthering his lead. Green fully took over North America and really hit up his fortifications. Blue was still working away small bits of Asia while still holding onto Australia. At this point in time, Blue wasn't much of a threat to any of us, but he was sure as fuck stockpiling quite a bit of territory cards to say the least; we all knew the Blue Golden army windfall was going to happen in the coming rounds, but we just didn't know when or where.

The next round was when shit really hit the fan for me. For some reason, I was seen as the larger threat by Green even though Purple had two objectives while I still only had one. He played a series of cards that would cripple me dearly for the rest of my turns; he first activated the card that would reduce my incoming drebin and reinforcement by half (sorry, I'm still having trouble memorizing the card names) and then a subsequent Foxdie to kill off my Snake. Out of options, I had to try to take over Outer Haven, luckily Outer Haven landed on South America. Aware that my land conquest was pretty much done for, I tried to friendly move my last remaining land mass onto the bow of Outer Haven to meet with teh rest of my army, but Green yet again cockblocked that friend move with a drebin card that would disallow the friendly move; my board position was more spread than a cock hungry whore's legs, to put the least.

_Green and Blue were pretty much free to do what they wanted to now that the threat between them, that being me, was taken care of. Purple continued his conquest into Russia, preparing for a huge assault on Blue's Asia presence. Along the way, Purple also nabbed the control 11 cities objective last round, totaling his objectives at 2 currently. He was planning to launch a full assault on Asia for the corresponding objective of controlling Asia. Green also prepared for the next assault onto Europe from North America, biding his time just a bit longer.



While Purple and Green were having their fun, I busted right into Purple's Africa from Brazil and snapped up his capital from right under his nose. I ended up just leaving one army in his capital so I would be able to refortify Outer Haven so to Purple, reclaiming his capital looked pretty simple. On his turn, he only reinforced Madagascar with three armies to move into his capital in an attempt to reclaim it. Unfortunately for Purple, I pulled out the FGM-148 Javelin tactical card and crushed his attempt to claim his capital back. At the moment, he had no way of winning this time as he subsequently sweeped over Asia this turn, claiming his THIRD objective. What a dick move, right?

Adding insult to injury, Green took over Europe and raped Purple through the back door harder than a prison soap dropping. It was clear that Purple overextended himself too thin and was brutally raped on both sides. The power shifted from Purple to Green. But Purple's raping wasn't quite over just yet..

Would you look at that? THE BLUE GOLDEN ARMY APPEARS!! Blue decided to cash in all his territory cards for a total of 17 reinforcements and dropped a shit ton all up on into Asia, starting off the massive third raping of Purple beginning from South East Asia all the way northward.

It was the ultimate fall from grace I've seen yet playing this MGS Risk. But one important thing to note - Blue couldn't take Japan over, so Purple was left one standing army in Asia surrounded by Green and Blue. This moment will be VERY IMPORTANT to note in the subsequent round.**

Blue finally landed his assault right in North America, which would permanently cockblock Green North America bonus for the rest of the game. There's nothing more frustrating than a Golden army surprise-butt-secks moment right in your face. For you Risk purists out there, this one's for you!!

On my turn, I fortified ALL my units into Purple's capital, further screwing him over to get the win while he's holding onto his three hard-earned objectives. To add insult to injury, I purchased Rat Patrol to further bolster my defence by having the luxury to reroll defending 1's. Cockblocking to its ultimate form and fuckery.

Jeff ended up passing his turn with nothing to do or anywhere to go on the board.

Next, I poked into Southern Europe with 3 armies to negate Green Europe bonus on his next turn which came quite in handy.

We are finally in that part of the game when shit's winding down to the final push. Green also used the Cheater! drebin card to bolster a shit ton of mods to try and take over Purple.

**It's important to note that whenever a player eliminates another player, the player that eliminated someone gets to take EVERYTHING they own, which includes OBJECTIVES. Thus, Green had to do a two-prong conquest onto Japan AND South America to wipe Purple off the map and also win the game. Green ended up taking Japan and when Green was about to take down Purple in Africa, Purple laid down the law by playing Mutually Assured Destruction. This drebin card essentially works like a Cease Fire, forcing Green to not attack Purple, which also locked Green in place with no way to enter Africa. It was a douchey move, but THE best one I've seen yet. You can feel the fuckery in the air when Green was so sure to take it, but was denied victory with just one card, omgggg!

We've now reached the end of the game and this is how it all ends. I begin my turn fortifying everything into Purple's capital that I still hold, hired Raiden from the mercenary pool, played a shit load more army-adding drebin cards, and finally bum rushed Purple's last bastion in Madagascar, then finally the rest of Africa. Destroying Purple's last army, at the same time staring down a huge Green battalion in the Middle East, I took Purple's three objectives, winning the game with a total of four objectives under my belt. From an almost impossible situation of getting two-pronged raped, I managed to steal out a win. I'm not gonna lie though, Green should've won this game, but like I mentioned before in my first review, the fact that EVERY drebin card is unique makes the game inherently flawed - relative to Risk 2210 anyways. But that's not to say that I dont relish in every Risk win I manage to eek out :)))

Check back for more Risk game reviews soon, hopefully more in February! And again, there will be another meetup in Redondo Beach on Feb. 18 for an intense sesh of boardgaming! I would love to meet any of my blog readers in person!!!


Here's the link once more: http://www.meetup.com/Beach-Cities-Board-Card-Gaming/events/49136722/
I really hope to see you there!!!

    With all the buzz about D3 coming out the first half of 2012, just about everyone was bummed when Bashiok trolled the Diablo community into saying D3 would be released in Q1. We HEAR Blizzard is shooting for Q2 now, but with the latest update on D3 about the new system change, I'm having my doubts about the Q2 release. But that's not to say it won't be for the better :)


Here's a quick list of all the changes so far:

• No more Scroll of Identities; you simply need to right-click on an unidentified item to identify it.
• The fifth quick slot button is now a dedicated potion button.
• Removal of the Mystic Artisan.
• Removal of the Cauldron of Jordan and the Nephalem Cube; you now have to go to the blacksmith to salvage items.
• Stone of Recall is removed and a Town Portal button is not affixed into the UI bar.
  
• Common, aka White, items will no longer be salvageable (definitely an improvement, imo)
• Changing the core attributes such as strength, dexterity, intellect, and vitality to be more class-specific.

The Scroll of Identity change is pretty self explanatory; why should you need a separate item to waste space to identity an item?

The dedicated potion button is definitely a huge help as there will always be a time in our quests against the Burning Hells when we just get in way over our heads. Encouraging the player to have a potion handy on a dedicated skill slot definitely helps out the UI quite a bit to always have that life-saving potion.

Now about removing the Mystic Artisan, I can understand why Bliz decided to do this. If it's not an imperative aspect to the game, why waste time and delay the game release trying to fine tune something that isn't necessary? I mean, I'm sure we would all love to make our weapons and armor just THAT MORE badass, but with a little more time on the drawing board, Bliz will reintroduce the Artisan again.

Ngl, with the Cauldron and the Cube, I have almost NEVER went back to town while playing the Beta for any other reason than to actually CRAFT items. Having the ability to salvage crap items on the go is just WAYYY too convenient. With the Cauldron and the Cube, there really was not point to even have a Stone of Recall to sell your shit off or to even dip into your stash. Which also leads to the next two points about the Town Portal and White items.

Adding the Town Portal function to the UI bar is pretty nice UI improvement. You no longer have to open up your inventory and click on the Stone of Recall; the Town Portal is now just RIGHT THERE, easily clickable.

Now, I don't know how many other people did this in the Beta, but I sure as fuck picked up EVERY item that fell when I was questing. Being able to salvage every item pretty much forced my hand to never leave an item behind, kind of like the Head Start program, but a shit ton better.. and for virtual items.... 
I'm sad to see this go, but salvaging white items just made crafting SOOO easy. I've def caught myself spending more time picking up items than actually going forward with the quest at hand.

The change in the core attributes is probably the most drastic change to have been implemented. You should def take a look at the actual report by Bliz themselves to see what it's all about before I completely botch the info for you. Just follow the link down below to get the whole story  on all the changes.



Here's the link to all the changes Bliz is currently implementing; it's definitely a huge one this time:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4325959/Systems_Changes-1_19_2012#blog

With all the buzz about Diablo 3 this year, and finally *crosses fingers* with word that Blizzard will release D3 the first half of THIS year, there's been a lot of buzz about release dates, rumors, and the such. But for any of you looking for something specific and concrete, Blizzard released the Book of Cain a while back for all the D3 lore fans out there.

My friend from SCKuma wrote a sick review of the Book of Cain. Follow the link and def check it out and his blog for you video game fans out there!

http://thebearsc.weebly.com/1/post/2011/12/inside-look-the-book-of-cain.html

    Now with the unboxing out of the way, we'll get into the play by play of our first REAL play-through after we've gotten familiar with the new rules and variations. But we'll first address all the main differences between MGS Risk and Risk 2210. MGS Risk utilizes the new objective system to win the game which was first introduced in Risk Revised back in 2009. The main premise here is to complete three objectives and you win the game. This means no more 5-6 hour Risk games for world domination; gone are the days of playing Risk into the wee hours of the morning since the night before. Roughly, games will last no more than 2 hours.. so yes, somewhere in the world, a Risk purist weeps.
   
    The next innovation introduced in MGS Risk are the Bosses. There are eight bosses to choose from and the function like Commanders from Risk 2210. But instead of having unique command cards, each boss has a special ability such as: dice modifiers, army fortification, and economy (more on this later), much like how the Gods functioned in Risk Godstorm.

    Instead of unique command cards like in Risk 2210, in MGS Risk, all the playable cards are under one name: Drebin Shop cards. There are two types of Drebin cards: Tactical and Action. Tactical works much like Diplomat cards and Action works much like Land cards laced with Nuclear cards. Drebin cards can be purchased by any player by using Drebin points which function exactly like Energy in Risk 2210. The one main difference between Drebin cards and Command cards is that there are NO MULTIPLES of one card for Drebin cards; each Drebin card is unique and has no copies. No more hoarding a shit ton of stealth mods or assemble mods anymore.. sadly.   

    The most unique addition to MGS Risk is the ship, Outer Haven. This ship functions essentially like a portable Moon that can launch a delayed Invade Earth effect. Outer Haven is randomly placed on the docking stations which are the numbered circular spots on each continent. When someone fully takes over Outer Haven, that player can choose to maneuver Outer Haven onto any of the docking stations they choose at the end of their Maneuver Stage. From there on, you can unload your army onto enemy land as you please.


   

    The start of the second round was when things really sped up. I rampaged my way through Asia, taking it over and clinching the objective for taking Asia in one turn. I then fortified my death ball of an army into Western United States using Solid Snake's ability to transverse through enemy territories. I was planning my next phase in North America for its cities to gain my third objective next round and with Justin located primarily on Outer Haven, my army would relatively be unopposed.

    Jeff continued his conquest to reestablish control of Europe after I poked into Russia to disrupt his Europe bonus. He then tried to bum rush his way through Asian and into Australia to take my capital, but I played a series of Drebin cards: Black Mail and Blind Side, which essentially worked as a roundabout Cease Fire stopping Jeff's attack on my Asia territories and locking his army in Russia.

    Justin began his turn reinforcing Brazil and leaving Outer Haven in South America to gain the other Outer Haven major objective. He then friendly moved all his units into Brazil without doing any major attacks.     

    After purchasing the 2 player Battle Box for Warmachine a couple days back (the review can be found here), I've taken quite a liking to Khador specifically. It's definitely something about Khador's badass Russian army theme and hulking masses of heavy warjacks that really just look so damn cool! Apparently, Khador is so badass, they don't even bother with 'light warjacks', no.. they go big or go home with only monstrous heavy warjacks which appropriately warrants their motto:

                                                               
                                                    "CRUSH ALL BENEATH YOUR IRON MIGHT!"

   

    So, being enamored with Khador at the moment, I bought the hardcover art book for the Khadoran army. Now, this book definitely wasn't cheap which retails at almost $50, but you can find it on Amazon for like $30-40; The soft cover version will run you a little less. I could've bought another unit box with that kind of money, but I've always had a weak spot for a game's lore, artwork, and extra goodies. This art book had exactly that, and I was not disappointed.

      
The book itself is well-made and has a good heft to it. The cover art has some amazing detail and gives a strong sense of the Khador army's prowess. The hardcover also has a smooth glossy sheen to it; very eye catching. I'm definitely into the whole industrial, metal border look for it. This hardcover has the kind of book shelf presence that would be great to display when people walk into your room to compliment your collection.

    The Khador artbook is simply amazing. It had everything I wanted to see in a book that contained so much information and artwork on my new favorite faction. Over the course of a night, I read through all the Khador lore and descriptions of each warcaster and unit; there was an impressive amount of information and a very enjoyable read.

    Ofcourse, this book isn't for everyone. To players who just like to play the game, this book will just be a waste of money, considering you could buy another unit box for the amount of cash you'd be forking up. But for anyone who's a fan of lore and artwork regarding the games they play, I definitely recommend this artbook for them.

"Crush all beneath your iron might?" Yes, please.

_    Before I purchased the battle box, I did some research on the contents and from the forums I've visited, THIS digest sized rule book was the most sought after item from this whole box. Now that I see it in person, I can definitely see why many Warmachine players would want this: it's compact, full color, easy to read and navigate, and has all the rules for MKII.
   
    For whatever reason, Privateer Press is not planning to sell this digest sized rule book individually, so the only way to obtain this is through the battle box. I know this will most certainly come in handy as I'm learning the game more in depth on the fly and is really easy on the eyes with the full color pages, and the abundance of diagrams and pictures to visualize the game rules.


   

_    This is where I truly love this battle box set as a starter for 2 players to get: the quick-start guide. Once I opened it, this guide laid out EVERYTHING you need to just get the game started and has a really steady pace progression to what kind of questions you would have during the game as play would become more intense. Just going over the quick-start guide, it was easy enough to start laying down the bases and start visualizing how the game would be played out.

    I honestly think that many table top games falter in their starter sets mainly due to the fact there is not a dedicated start guide for players to just jump right into the game. Players in most starter sets would have to look through an intimidating rulebook or manual to find what they need to just set the game up, bogged down with text and lack luster image guides. Privateer Press, my hat goes off to you for this one; you really made this starter set shine so far.

_    The quality of this starter just keeps going on and on. I LOVE this introduction guide with a passion. Not only does this set come with a detailed quick start, but it puts the icing on top with a full color pamphlet giving the back-drop history of these two warring factions AND some nice extras to compliment owning some new swank minis.
   
    This guide also gives you an overview and lore of every other faction in the Warmachine universe, plus a few brief summaries of the factions in Hordes, the counterpart to Warmachine and can be played together.

    What I really liked about this guide is the picture detail and step by step walk through of how to paint each faction's warjacks beginning from the basecoat, all the way to the highlighting steps to get you started on how to paint your minis pretty well. I know you can easily find painting tips online now, but this extra bit of info Privateer Press added in really impressed me.

    And finally, there are also some templates for certain weapon attacks and terrain templates that can be photocopied right off the page to get you started from the get go. Why force anyone to pay extra for a template set for players who just want to see if they even like the game first? A nice addition and foresight, imo.

                                                                   (Some extra images of the intro guide below)

_   

       
    Here are the stat cards that come with all the info for each miniature; health, attack power, defense, special abilities etc. The cards look pretty detailed and have a matte feel to them. They look to have a bit of a gloss to them so they seem to be pretty nice quality. They're your standard sized trading cards like Magic: The Gathering so they'll easily fit into any card sleeves you have lying around or 9-grid card sleeves. Longevity for these cards won't be an issue with a set of sleeves.   

_    Ohh, this is pretty neat. The starter actually comes with a nifty magazine with some Warmachine community information. I was flipping through this and it had this well documented battle between two players, step by step, turn by turn. It was a really good read and gave me a few ideas of what Warmachine strategy is like and how a game would end. Not a necessity for a starter, but a really nice extra that had some good tidbits of info about the game. I'm pretty tempted to order some other issues of No Quarter online now..

    Not to mention that front cover art looks pretty damn sick too :)











   

_    All in all, I f**cking LOVE this box set! Not only is it a great deal with an awesome price, it also comes with so many extra goodies that I can't help but to just fall in love with this new miniature war game. I've hardly had the chance to play it, but I'm already looking up forums and online stores for more ideas on how to expand my army and what strategies I can employ. I honestly haven't been so excited for a game in a LONG time; this one is definitely a winner!
   
    As I progress through Warmachine, I hope I'll be able to continually blog about this game! The game is really well-made and will definitely satiate my appetite for hours and hours of Saturday night geekery.

    Sorry, Risk 2210 - you were indeed my first love.. and you still are! Buuut, I really think it's best for us to see other people right now. No hard feelings, right?