Character Developments

When you say it out loud, a whole board game about creating a D&D style fantasy character sounds silly. But how different is it from games where you're trying to build a western town, an expedition journal, or a space empire? And besides, there are many that would argue that building and developing your character is the most compelling part of playing Dungeons & Dragons, or indeed almost any role playing game.

Roll Player had intrigued me for some time, but it's done by a small publisher who primarily uses Kickstarter so availability has been spotty since it came out in 2016. I finally got a chance to play it at a convention earlier this year, and was instantly hooked, so much so that I bought a copy right then and there.

The game features a game board for each player denoting one of the standard fantasy races such as elf, dwarf, or halfling, plus a few more esoteric choices like minotaur or cat person. From there players are dealt a random set of character class cards from which they choose their profession, a backstory, and an alignment.

Game play revolves around randomly choosing 6-sided dice from a bag, rolling them, and then taking turns choosing which ones to add to the different statistics on your character sheet. The number rolled on the dice is important, but so is the color -- your profession tells you what range of numbers you want, and your back story (as well as other factors) tell you what color and where on the sheet you want to place them.

After dice are chosen, players choose from a row of equipment cards which further enhance their characters, with specific equipment and skills being more or less suited to specific types of characters. Among the choices are skill cards that adjust your character's alignment (their moral compass) when used, as well as trait cards that give a point bonus at the end of the game.

These two phases are repeated 12 times, at which time all the players will have a full player board. Points are awarded based on how well optimized the character is, with bonus points for placing the the right colors of dice in the right places on your sheet, acquiring equipment and traits best suited to your character, and getting your alignment marker placed in a way that suits your alignment card.

It's a well-designed engine-building game, and I find it a bit more compelling than empire-building games like Race for the Galaxy because I'm building and individual character and equipping him (or her) for adventure, rather than a more abstract empire of planets and starships. An expansion adds the ability to fight minor monsters, building up experience in order to face off against a big bad at the end of the game, but honestly I find that addition a little distracting; I would rather just spend time building my character.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) a terrific game that's compelling but reasonably simple to play and not overly competitive, making it a great choice for a casual game night.

• Roll Player official website
• Roll Player on BoardGameGeek

Sega CD - The Other CD Expansion

The Sega CD is treated like the unwanted step-child of the CD expansions.  Early CD systems and expansions before the PlayStation were not the breakthrough product their manufacturers hoped they would be.  They did not deliver the substantially superior gaming experiences they promised and were generally considered too expensive for what they did deliver.  And what they delivered was often unimpressive, ports of cartridge games with enhanced audio and superfluous cutscenes, FMV games which relied on route memorization, PC game ports that had no business being run on hardware that did not have a hard drive, a keyboard or a desk with which to use a mouse and interactive entertainment software which was barely interactive and not entertaining.  Today we are going to take a look at the Sega CD, its hardware, its quirks and ultimately the games that make it worth considering as a device on which to play games rather than to put on a collector's shelf.

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You say "obsessed" as if it is a bad thing.

DE: A Different Take On Wyches

I mean sure, why not?  Let's give these girls another try.

Maybe I have been going after this all wrong.  I've been thinking to myself for a while now:  How do I get Wyches into my army while still being effective.  Well, maybe with Succubi down to 54 points with an Agonizer, it's time to start bringing more HQs, in general, to make up for this loss?  What about Wyches?  Should I go big or go small with them?  If I go big with them, they certainly take advantage of their Obsession bonuses and Combat Drugs more, but they lose out on their ability to be easily transported by Raiders.  I feel that's a big loss because you need something that can reposition them when they need to around the battlefield without exposing them to enemy fire.

The more I think about it, the more I want to try MSU Wyches instead of running larger units of them.  My reasoning is this:

• What do they really gain after they pass their min units really?  There's definitely more bodies to soak up during Overwatch, but that's about it.  It's only when they get to 10 do they get to take additional Wych weapons.  However, if you take 10, you can't really fit more in the Raider now, can you?
• If you keep them in min units, not only do you fill out your Troop choices easier, but you can take more Agonizers and Blast Pistols in a squad.  For example, you can run 2x5 and get double the amount of Agonizers and Blast Pistols.  The only downside is that your drugs are going to be more dispersed.
• For smaller units, it's really the HQs that do the most heavy lifting.  I guess you should start asking yourself what are you really using Wyches for?  IMO, the more competitive lists can kill MEQ just fine by shooting them to death, so what are you doing with them?  At this stage, I think we're just styling.

I think that kinda settles it:  I don't think Wych units are all that competitive, but they're not terrible either.  Reavers are some of the best units in the codex I think, but the Wyches themselves are decent at best.  Regardless, I think you can take a setup that is cheap enough, especially from an HQ perspective, that you can afford to take a Battalion for them if you're planning to use them in the first place.

Quick note:  I think Strife and Red Grief are the best for this.  They both have really nice Warlord Traits.  Strife gives you Blood Dancer and the 9-attack Succubus build with the Whip, whereas the Blood Glaive is just a fantastic weapon to have.  In general, I see +1A is very useful all around, especially with Agonizers because Strength doesn't matter for it and neither do Blast Pistols.  As always, I think anything that can Advance and Charge and re-roll the results of both after T2+ is just amazing.  I am definitely more inclined to take these two cults over Cursed Blade.

This is what I mean:

1990 // 10 CP
Black Heart Battalion +3 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91
Warlord Trait: Cunning

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91

TROOP:
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

PARTY BUS:
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85

+++

Black Heart Spearhead +1 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91

FLYER:
Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145
Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125

+++

Strife Battalion +3 CP

HQ:
Succubus, Adrenalight, Whip = 54
Warlord Trait: Blood Dancer

Succubus, Painbringer, Agonizer = 54

TROOP:
5x Wyches, Agonizer, BP, Shardnet = 59
5x Wyches, Agonizer, BP, Shardnet = 59
5x Wyches, Agonizer, BP, Shardnet = 59

>>>

Firepower:
12 Dark Lances at BS3+
9 Disintegrators at BS3+
6 Blasters at BS3+
3 Blasters at BS2+
3 Blast Pistols at BS3+
2 Razorwing Missiles at BS3+
25 Splinter Rifles at BS3+

Face it:  There's nothing that this list can do that the pure Kabal list can't do from a pure damage perspective.  Killing things at range is satisfying for sure, but killing them in close combat with some of the most ridiculous melee heroes in the game so far might be very worthwhile as well.

So what does deployment actually look like?  Well, the 2x5 unit of Wyches goes into a single Raider while all the Archons and Succubus pile into another Raider with the rest of the Wyches.  Yes, 3 Archons and 2 Succubus go into a Raider:  The beginning of every dirty film.

From there, you just treat the 2x5 unit as a single Raider unit while remembering that you will probably get murdered if you try assaulting before you Raider gets a chance to get in there first.  You charge in with the Raider, tie up whatever was trying to shoot your ass, and then run your naked girls in for some good damage with Agonizers.  Don't forget to bring you super killy Succubus along for the ride too.  The Archons can come if they want, but most of the time they will be running around the rest of the Kabal spreading good stuff 6" bubbles while totting Blaster fire down on your opponents.  However, always remember that they're not shy to getting their feet wet, so if you need them to take on a big unit of MEQ for whatever reason, hook them up with some Huskblades and throw them into the fray.

I'm just going to leave this list right here and let it marinate for a while.  This is just a theory list and I think it can do pretty decent.  One thing's for damn sure:  10 CP sure makes me happy.