30 April 2007

Back from Theocracy by the Bay

Well, Theocracy was good this year.  I had the opportunity to play a lot more games than I thought I would thanks to "Ante up again" and even made it to the Final Table, though I think I came in like 5th or something.  (I don't think I was quite out of gold!)  Now, with Kublacon on the horizon, its time to begin beating the bushes for the ACTA tournament again.  So, if you're in northern California (or even as far away as San Diego!) come on up and play!

There was an un-updated mistake on the source Excel file for the White Star in the ISA fleet.  Previously the entry was corrected when I was reminded of the FAQ on the SFOS White Star stats in Armageddon.  When I added the Nolo'Tar Frigate to it this came back, and I've had to fix the card again.  The corrected version is now posted.

22 April 2007

Card Fleet Updates

Got to work on a lot of the miscellaneous ships you've seen in Signs and Portents recently, as well as updated a couple corrected Dilgar Cards.  The Omelos and Targrath are updated and if you have a Dilgar Fleet you'll want download these cards.  Updated to the Minbari arsenal is the re-statted Troligan Armored cruiser.  There's been a lot of debate on this ship on the Mongoose forums, mostly dealing with its high hull value in conjunction with stealth.  Personally, I think the doubling (or better) of its crippling and skeleton crew thresholds probably makes up for it.  A new ship for the Interstellar Alliance, is the Nolo'Tar Ranger Frigate.  The Nolo'Tar is actually a very old design, dating back to the time of Valen, so I guess "What's old is new again!"  It also fills a badly needed Skirmish spot in the ISA fleet roster.  New for the Brakiri is a Scout Cruiser, the Shakara-class.  Now, the business types won't have to outsource the badly needed role of scout to other members of the League...

Conquest Sac was a little disappointing this year.  The attendance seemed a little smaller, and there weren't as many games being run as previously.  I still have a couple gripes regarding the convention packet they gave us - They STILL didn't include a map of the hotel and they STILL didn't include a schedule of the RPGA games.  Its hard to bring in new players when they didn't know when the Intro Modules would be played.

Since I had to cancel KOTJ 3, I decided I put my best face forward and see if I could get some interest in some demos this year.  Nobody nibbled.  (Told you it was disappointing.)  I did get to see Chris (Demonllama) and Erin and his friend (sorry I forget the name!) who was leaving that day to re-join his unit and head off to Iraq.  Good luck buddy, it was nice to meet you, I hope you come back whole (in body and spirit).

King of the Jumpgate IV will be the new King of the Jumpgate III as far as awards are concerned.  Also its looking up for attendance, I've got 3 confirmed, 1 on the hook, none of whom were at last year's KOTJ II.  If we can gather all of the gamers from the aborted Sacramento tournament we could have a very good sized field for a tourney indeed.

And to top it off?  Dead batteries in the digital camera. Pfft.

13 April 2007

KOTJ 3 Cancelled

King of the Jumpgate is dead, long live King of the Jumpgate!  Last minute competitor cancellations led to this event not having enough responses to occur.  I didn't want players to travel far only to play against the people they usually play against locally.

The good news is that King of the Jumpgate 4 (which will become the new "III") is still on and have some locals signed up and some interest from gamers in SoCal and will probably be a bigger event this year.

I'd commented before that running the two tournaments (at Conquest Sac and Kublacon) so close together was probably eating into each other's player base, and I guess I was right. By consolidating the events into one I believe we can get a 10-12 player tournament going that should be much more fun than two- 6 player tournaments.  And as time goes on we'll attract more players anyway.

I'll still be taking plenty of pictures at Conquest Sac, and I'm hoping to run some demos in place of the tournament.  Hopefully Avalon Games (Conquest Organizers) isn't too put out at me for having to cancel the event at the last minute.

7 April 2007

One week and counting.

Conquest Sacramento 2007, and the King of the Jumpgate III tournament is now 1 week away, with preparations well under way.  Now, you'll get to share in some of that, as I round out the resources page of the website by adding a bunch of terrain for you all.  I added some gas clouds and asteroids; some are new, and some are images I had simply not gotten around to adding to the website yet.

Printing terrain may not be for you, but to me its easily the most user friendly.  You can have your ships on the planet or asteroids without issues, you can easily tell where the boundary of your gas cloud is, and when you're done, it packs away very cleanly and takes up a minimum of space.  Plus, all it takes is a little mulah at the copy shop for some laser prints and lamination.  What could be easier?

The forums have absolutely been bustling with posts about the ACTA 2E preview in the latest Signs and Portents.  Fleets are changing, rules are changing, rules are getting added, rules are getting removed, all in the hopes that the next version will better represent combat in JMS's world of Babylon 5.  What will happen?  Will it succeed? Fail? or be even more full of little things people continue to debate and nick pit about endlessly?  Only time will tell...

Personally, my biggest hope is that it will be easier.  More accessible.  ACTA is hardly the mass market game it could be, but most games in space tend towards the niche market.  My greatest fear is that in the push to get a release done this year a lot of things are going to be unbalanced, and the book will be full of flubs that could have been easily fixed had a little more care been placed in editing.  Mongoose has taken many suggestions and (dare I say) tirades from the forums in stoic British fashion and are trudging foreword and incorporating them into the new edition, currently in playtest.  So, go on and make yourself heard!  after all...

"What do you want?"