From the Vault: Green Dragon Lurker

Just a quick post to show off my all-time favorite dragon figure. It's just a plain, green dragon with an old school feel because, well, it's old! It was included in the Forest of Doom playset made by Dimensions for Children (DFC) in '81.

It was part of the Dragon Riders of the Styx series (so I'm told). Reis over at Geek Orthodox did a lengthy post on the whole series a while back, so I'll let him fill you in on the details. Some of the photos over there weren't holding up when I checked, but here's hoping they are back up. Here's an alternate set of photos just in case (scroll down a bit).

Anyway, who can resist this little guy? What a great pose!

What constitutes a new edition of a game?

Specifically: a board game. I have a reason for my rant, which I'll get to in a second. First, let's ponder the question. What makes a new edition of game "new"? Is it new box art? Different playing pieces? A new set of rules? Is it the fact that a game manufacturer says it's new?

What if just the box is different? I'm looking for input here people.

Here's why: I was noodling around on Board Game Geek and saw a gap in the database--that is, I saw a game that didn't have an fairly prominent edition listed. I won't go into specifics in this post, but sufficed to say that the game is very well known, and considered a family type board game.

I submitted the game (three actually) for entry into the BGG database--even had dozens of photos of my copies at home ready to upload. The answer was swift, it took less than 24 hours: Denied!

Denied? The reason? Why it's elementary--there's really no reason to have multiple entries for these was the response I got back. I did my best to present a rational argument that several games have different pages for each edition--including the ones I'm proposing--why what's up with the denial bro?

VS.

VS.

So, what say you gentle readers? Am I off base here? Is an edition an edition an edition? Or should a game get one entry no matter how many times it's been reprinted....in the last 65 years?

*Photos: Board Game Geek; and no, these were not the ones I was proposing.

New Legendary Encounter (Painted!) Minis

It's not the size of the mace, it's the size of the guy who swings it!

So Reaper Miniatures has released a new slew of Legendary Encounter minis (their pre-painted/plastics line) and I picked up a few at the Source last weekend.

I'm a big fan of these as I'm artistically challenged (this is familiar territory) and these little guys look better than the Wizards of the Coast line. In fact, it appears that Reaper has improved the quality of their paint applications making these a great value. My only problem is the selection of figs. It's not too many and we waited more than a year for this wave to be shipped. A wave of FIVE figures mind you. Also, Reaper chose one of the figures for this wave to be...a giant spider.

Yeah, it's got a nice sculpt and the paint job's pretty good--but seriously? Anyone could find a stupid plastic spider in just about any toy isle in Walgreens. (That's where I found mine.) I'd much would have rather had my hands on any number of nasties. This was just a poor choice on Reaper's part.

But I'm professionally painted!

(This pic isn't mine because I didn't pick it up. And I won't. Out of principle!

The rest of the rogues gallery fills out quite nicely, including:

A werewolf...
A mean lookin' bugbear....

And some much needed goblins!
Not a bad selection overall. I really hope Reaper continues this line, though I'd be much obliged if they'd be smarter about which monsters/characters would be most appealing. I already have several of these and I'm quite happy with them overall.

"You don't look like you're from around here."

Surpise!

Yes, well, I'm back posting again after, er, two months (really? that long?). For those who did read this blog (all 3 of you) I thank you humbly for your patronage. I've not been absent entirely though--I think many of you have seen me commenting from time to time on other blogs. Anyway, fall is here and that means more time indoors and more blogging.

A preview of a few ideas I'm working on:

Cover art encounters - BBG has a great recent post on the evolution of D&D covers and it got me thinking: have you ever picked up a book or module expecting to play the scenario on the cover only find that it's NOT in there? Have you ever scrapped the text in favor of recreating the scene on the cover? Stay tuned on that one.

Make a mini game - I've been really inspired by what's going on over at Paladin's blog about mini/micro games. (Not sure which is more correct--or maybe they should be called nano-games??) Anyway, he's got quite the collection and a great deal of knowledge/experience with the little buggers. It was his posts that inspired me to pick up Dungeoneer last week. In addition, I picked up HeroCard Orc Wars. Both are card-based games and OW actually includes beautiful tiles and some minis.

This is all leading me towards a passion project I've wanted to do in mashing up rules-lite RPGs with board games. I've been obsessed with trying to revamp the old Dungeon! game and I've started/stalled about a half-dozen times. I think I read somewhere that another blogger was doing the same and I'll be damned if I can't find his posts at the moment. Every time I think I'll lean more RPG I find some cool new board game or vice versa. And then Dungeons and Digressions had to go and post this. Which completely overloaded my circuits with joy and jealousy. :)

In any case, this is always on my mind, so expect some updates.

Geekish encounters/musings - My nerdliness knows no bounds, and I've recently run into a few local writers and illustrators so I'll make a few posts about the folks doing great work here in the Twin Cities.

Minis, bad sketches, etc. - Don't think for a second that I won't post about the cool minis that I've been amassing. And the bad sketches will continue until morale improves. Or until my drawing ability does. (Don't bet on either.)

That's all for now, be ready for more!