- Gave BattleTech: Alpha Strike a thorough reading and I am immensely pleased and excited! My review on Play Unplugged has been posted! I predict a lot of old BT players will be dusting off their 'Mechs and other units for Alpha Strike.
- Re-reading Dune--I do this every two years or so. I keep threatening to produce a community theater version of the book and casting my various friends in the main roles. Sometimes I think I am only half-joking!
- I was bummed out when Fate Core arrived at my FLGS and we proceeded to sell one of the five copies we ordered. Then I realized that a lot of the customers who would have bought it supported the Kickstarter. We'll sell all of our copies, I am certain of this, but it will just take a while longer. It's an interesting dynamic. Such a fine book would not exist without KS, but KS siphons some of the natural customer base for it in the shops.
- Painting BattleMechs again is great, and the campaign system in Alpha Strike means you can play meaningful games with some story elements attached to them. I plan to add a pair of Exterminators and an Atlas to round out my company. Best part about it was my FLGS was able to order them via distribution, and that has not always been the case with Iron Wind's stuff.
- JoAnn and I watched African Queen over the weekend, and while it's not Humphrey Bogart at the height of his powers, it still ranks as an all-time classic in my eyes. Makes me want to bust out the pulp miniatures!
- My copy of 13th Age from Pelgrane Press should be arriving this week, and I am excited! It's an RPG that mixes D&D 4E mechanics with indie game design principles to create something truly new and weirdly cool. And knowing Pelgrane, the hardcover will be a thing of beauty.
That's all for this installment, but I should have some more painted 'Mechs to show off this week.
Thanks for visiting!
--Scott
great post Scott, I'm looking forward to the Alpha Strike review!
ReplyDeleteI will post an update as soon as it goes live. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteKickstarter is significantly impacting many stores' sales, and forcing very cautious ordering. The most notable example is the Reaper Bones project. Its massive success may have been great for backers, but the retailer forums are full of complaints about how Reaper sales have dropped to near-zero and how backers are coming in trying to sell unwanted Bones figs to shops. When they fail to do so those figs are flooding the secondary markets like ebay, which makes retailing Bones (when it does finally hit stores) even more difficult, cheap though it may seem.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of speculation behind the scenes that Reaper wants to transition into making their primary business contract casting, not their own minis production, and that the Bones KS gave them the funding to upgrade their facilities to handle that sort of shift. If that's true, there's probably going to be some grim times ahead for a lot of freelance sculptors.
Interesting insights--we'll see how it all plays out. Anecdotally, we have seen a slight drop in Reaper sales at Phantom, but not precipitous. And every time we get Bones in (those that HAVE hit distribution) they sell through, although this last round has lingered a bit.
ReplyDeleteI hold out hope that Reaper will transition the whole of their lines to Bones plastic and start making lots of new figures again. Time will tell, I guess.
--Scott
Please let me be Stilgar.
ReplyDeleteThe role is yours!
ReplyDelete