What kind of gamer am I? Well I guess this shouldn't be a surprise....

So in my wanderings looking for some good bloggers and sites to start my other other project; aside from painting minis with my friends, I'd like to create a tabletop board game. I know, right? What the hell does that mean? I don't know exactly, but I'm going to give it the old college try.

So me being me, there's a lot of research I've been doing, and clearly a lot of opinions abound on the interwebs. I'm working through Reddit, and some blogs, but one site that I was immediately impressed with is Quantic Foundry (probably because they are social science data nerds like me). 

So I started with their original 5 minute survey on online gaming style. This is a pretty brilliant survey approach since they can collect some demographic data and then get me to answer a bunch of questions because I am motivated to see where I land and potentially learn about new games that would fit my gaming style. So here's the first set of results:

Consider me flattered :)

In another 3.5 D&D campaign (and hoping we get back to one day), I think the sense of community with my gaming group, the fact that we're a mixed age group, and that we're all pretty nice, smart people really matters. So in terms of tabletop gaming, here is how I fared...again, quite accurate, imho: 

What is really interesting is that in r/l, I'm definitely one of the least conflict averse people I know. I don't enjoy conflict for conflict's sake, but if I have to do some ass kicking, I will. And, in turn, I have had my ass kicked plenty of times, so I've learned that if you engage in conflict as a tactic or strategy, the more real world consequences it has on you and your world. I wonder if people who have to deal with conflict (physical, political, social, emotional) everyday would choose games that mimic those situations/contexts in their gaming life? 

As the chart above chart reflects, in my gaming life, I avoid conflict almost completely. For example, I never thought that PvP was fun, and backstabbing or trying to get your party members killed isn't fun either. Now I do like games where there is some social manipulation involved. Diplomacy, The Resistance and Sheriff of Nottingham are all time favorites of mine. Diplomacy is super old school - I wonder if I could talk the guys into playing it with me again one of these days? Here's a tutorial on Diplo - this is more of a reminder to me to read back up on the rulez:



Now Resistance and SoN are much newer games, and quite fun. Aside from the fact that I have finally forgiven Wil Wheaton for his TNG character AND the fact that he has turned out to be one cool-ass, very cute, middle-aged dude, I'd love to play a game of Resistance one day with my buddies, but you need a minimum of 5 players for this to work. Wesley, I mean, Wil, has a channel called TableTop on YT and he is totally "Crushing" it with 1.4 million subscribers. Ok, I'll stop with the TNG puns now. 



Ok, hope everyone has a great Monday!

Lead Doesn't Bleed!

When I first heard about what some of my gaming buddies did as a side business/hobby - 3mm minis for wargaming - I thought to myself: wow, these guys are Ur-Nerds, and wow, this is too cool!! While I'm definitely more of a 3.5 kinda gal (and rapidly loving Cthulhu as well), I've never been so much into boardgames that require a lot of using of rulers and sticks and such. I know, that sounds stupid since others would be like, "And dice are more real? Come on." But whatevs, I like my magic casters and spells! 

For the record, I have been known to get into a game or two of Star Wars Armada so I kinda get the idea of formations and rulers and such. But I'm just not so much about the historical battles. There, confession made! Let's move on :)

Lead Doesn't Bleed - Politically incorrect, Family-Unfriendly War Gaming Blog has introduced me to the fact that there are actually 2mms as well in this gaming universe?!?!? Really?? And he's got some amazing posts of these 3mms for some Ogre game that I'm still trying to figure out. The painting is fantastic, and I'm realizing we need a better camera for our painting project because there is no way any of our phones, no matter how S7 they are, will get this level of detail. Check out the blog post here. But my fave pic from that post is definitely this one, called "Mama Spank" :)




I'm highlighting them also because they link to PicoArmor! Whoohoo!! My Pico-Nerds are super thrilled that I'm finding all of these references and connections for them through my little blogging time I can put in. I think it is great that this hobby is totally blowing up and that younger people and (maybe??!?) more people from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds will make this community even more fun and vibrant over time. Insofar as nice clean fun, this is totally it - and encouraging more young people to think about rules and strategy and good gamesmanship can't be all that much of a waste of time, no?

Analogue Hobbies does PicoArmor's 3mm Napoleonics! Wow....

So as I'm figuring out this world of 3mm and painting, check out these beautiful sets that were created by Analogue Hobbies blogger Curt - he's got a great walkthrough of how he created these sets, and others. Checkout his website - and check out the shout out he gives to PicoArmor!

http://analogue-hobbies.blogspot.com/2015/07/wee-men-in-belgium-blucher-napoleonic.html