Review: Puppets War Football Orc Heads

One of the fantastic things we've seen develop in the last decade or so in the world of miniatures is the emergence of companies that provide conversion pieces (AKA bitz), often designed to seamlessly replace a component from another company's line of miniatures.  Puppets War is one such provider who hail from sunny Poland, and I just took delivery of an order of their orc football team heads.

It's pretty obvious what these heads are for, but care has to be taken in their advertising.  After all, Games Workshop so fervently pursue retention of their intellectual property that it even resulted in Talk Blood Bowl -- a popular site that you might think GW would be happy to see providing so much free advertising and enthusiasm for one of their products -- being forced to rename itself to Talk Fantasy Football.  Suffice to say, I personally will be using the heads to convert GW orc/ork miniatures for Blood Bowl.

Onto the bitz themselves.

The heads are made from a non-metal resin which holds a very crisp level of detail.  For those already familiar with good quality miniature resin, it won't surprise you to learn that these heads utterly put plastic to shame.  As I look at an open-mouthed plastic GW ork boy's top row of teeth (teef), I can count 4; the Puppets War orc head, by comparison, has 8.  There is some flash, and, as is always expected, some mold lines.  Though, it must be said, they are well positioned and nothing looks too challenging to be cleaned.  I feel as though the material has perfectly captured exactly what the sculptor (Adrian Gaweł) was aiming for, with no compromises.

And, sadly, that brings me to a flaw in this material.  I didn't know before ordering that the jaw-protector of the helmets was actually cast as a separate piece.  For making each member of my team unique, this is fantastic.  However, resin is brittle -- infamously so -- and straight out of the packet you can probably see from the photos that there are lots of breakages on these delicate parts.  Lots.

It has also meant that in many cases the jaw-protectors have come loose from the much heavier sprue, as have some of the heads.  Where things have stayed on the sprue, there are occasional breakages also.  Keep in mind, I haven't touched these things, other than to remove them from their packaging.

And I've ended up with a pile of very orky-looking bitz indeed.

The ork in me likes seeing big piles of smashed up fings dat looks well orky.
The sane person in me is a bit disappointed, though.

So, is this the fault of the packaging itself?  Hard to say.  I had the forethought to take a photo of the box these pieces were sent in before opening it, and it looked sufficient from the outside.  It's a solid cardboard box, within which all the pieces were placed in a single zip-lock style baggie, with a small bag full of air to cushion one end.  So, I'm not sure if the taxing journey from Poland to the UK was the cause of the breakages or not.

What I am sure of, though, is that the website advertised 12 heads and 2 balls per set.  Most unfortunately, I've ended up with just one ball (fnar?).  I'm going to contact the company about that shortly, but didn't want to keep you, dear readers, without something to read first.  Many people are happy to make their own Blood Bowl balls from greenstuff and similar, and since I'm presently in need I'll give that a go too, but alas it's not the most convenient solution and greenstuff certainly isn't free.  The inclusion of the footballs was a big selling point for me.

When I start actually making use of the heads, I'll post up some comparison pictures between these and GW heads for scale, and show how well they fit onto the bodies.  But since this initial review is about the products themselves, not what I want to do with them, that can wait for another post.

To finish this, though, I'll conclude that Puppets War have a fantastic sculptor in their employ, who makes characterful and detailed orc heads that I predict will look amazing on the table.  However, the company needs to be a lot more vigilant, and check packages before sending things out.  After all, this is my first impression as it's my first order with them.

I hope I can sort things out with them and it won't have to be my last.

Update 13th September 2012: For those interested, I contacted Puppets War shortly after posting this on the 10th.  I received an initial reply on the 11th requesting pictures of the received package (just as well I documented everything for this here blog, eh?) and sent that, getting only one more communication yesterday to say that the photos were being passed on to "the guys" and "let them tell us what they do with it".  I'll update this post again if/when I hear something more.

Update 27th September 2012: I finally saw resolution of this yesterday when, unannounced, a package arrived from Puppets War containing a new set of heads, and every item accounted for correctly.  It seems the jaw-protectors are most definitely cast in an unsuitable material, since once again they were in pieces.  Since I have sufficient from this and the last pack (and can make do with fuse wire anyway) I'm happy to call it a day and get on with (finally) building my team.  Puppets War dealt with my problems in a reasonable fashion (though more communication would have been welcomed) so I'll likely be ordering from them again when I simply can't resist any more.

Mantic Games - Female DreadBall Team

It seems many of you, dear readers, are interested in hearing about the Mantic Games upcoming Definitely-Not-Blood-Bowl game DreadBall.  So, it's my duty to keep you informed, and here's the latest: there could be a female Corporation DreadBall team.

This early concept work is by Roberto Cirillo.  Mantic have responded by immediately suggesting less armour, which is a shame, frankly, because as it stands I think this might be the most progressive move the fantasy sports tabletop gaming niche has yet seen.

Wildcard MVP

One of the things that turns me off some of the third-party (i.e. not GW) Blood Bowl teams is that there's some seriously degrading female stuff in there.  I'm no prude, I like naked breasts on a woman as much as the next guy, but in my opinion that's for the bedroom not the pitch or the battlefield.  At least, not any pitch or battlefield where all the guys are clad in as much metal as they can get away with.

Mantic's thoughts are presently that they'd prefer something a little closer to Wildcard, the human MVP who represents the only creature with ovaries amongst the sausage-fest of the remainder of the DreadBall universe.  Honestly, that's not so very terrible, Wildcard is far from the most sexualised representation that's ever been pushed for, well, anything that's part of this wonderful world of nerd.  But she's still distinctively different, as though her being female somehow marks her as unequal, and that's the feeling I'd prefer to not see come to the forefront if, indeed, we do get to see female human teams in DreadBall.

Maybe you feel differently.  Comments are open and welcomed.

Mantic Games - DreadBall vs Blood Bowl

Just a quickie.

In my first post when DreadBall was announced/teased I incautiously criticised Mantic Games for stealing the idea directly from GW's Blood Bowl.

The RefBot cautions me that any further unfounded accusations will not be looked upon lightly

To be fair, it really did look like Blood Bowl In Space.

But Jake Thornton on his Quirkworthy blog has said the differences are numerous, and DreadBall isn't designed to copy Blood Bowl.  And I can respect that.  And he makes a good case, to boot.

So, I formally retract my accusations of thematic theft*, and I won't speculate further until I've played the game.  And some more Blood Bowl.

* And quietly apologise to Jake, too.  He was always my favourite White Dwarf editor, y'know.

Mantic Games - DreadBall

Something just came and hit me out of left field (do you see what I did there?).  And that's Mantic Games sending out a teaser for their new game DreadBall.

Mantic has already established itself as the Company Not Afraid to Rip-Off Games Workshop (which has a poetic justice to it if you consider how often GW can be accused of intellectual theft).  Where GW were afraid to include Squats in their Warhammer: 40,000 universe, Mantic stepped in with their Forge Fathers.  Where GW didn't want to release Space Hulk again, Mantic stepped in with Project Pandora: Grim Cargo.

Wait, hang on.  GW did re-release Space Hulk, and it was a huge hit for them.

The cargo is grim.  It's rats.

And Studio McVey are doing their own take on it with Sedition Wars.  Meh, what am I complaining about, I like Space Hulk, and welcome all new takes on it.

Back to Blood Bowl being ripped off.

Mantic aren't the first to this, either.  Impact! Miniatures have Elfball, and there's a handful of other companies with other fantasy sports titles to boot.

What makes this one different?  Well, for starters, it's sci-fi not fantasy, so it's more Speedball than Grave Yardage.  From the teaser image, it looks like it'll use Mantic's Marauders from their Warpath game and pit them against the recently released Enforcers, who to my mind look like the lovechild of a Necron and Iron Man.

I can't say I'm 100% sure about all this, but it's quite stimulating news regardless.  Given my cash flow issues at the moment, there's no way I can guarantee I'll even seriously consider a purchase.  But if someone else offered to host a game with their copy... I have to admit, I'd jump at the chance.

Advanced Heroquest - Character Sheet

Click above if you're happy using a PNG file, look below for the PDFs

Not quite a board game, not quite a roleplaying game, definitely a miniatures game but entirely unlike a wargame, Advanced Heroquest is somewhat of a forgotten gem, in my mind.  Preceded by Milton Bradley's Hero Quest and succeeded by Games Workshop's Warhammer Quest, it has the difficulties of the middle child, but it's somehow always been my favourite of this type of game.

And, arguably, the internet's least.

A good few years ago, I ran AHQ regularly for a group, and we had a blast.  As a result of that, I made up loads of my own houserules, and supporting miscellanea -- like this character sheet I'm posting today.

The character sheets that came with the game were printed on the back of the rulebook, and occupied one half of a page of A4 -- the other being given up to graph paper that dungeons would be mapped out on by the players themselves.  My players always found that to be insufficient cartography room by far, so I always handed out full sheets of A4 graph paper for them to map away to their hearts' content.

The character sheets I'm posting today have been updated just a bit to be suitable for the outside world.  It's 100% my own creation based off the original design, but otherwise this is a product from an age that has passed.  It's my fond hope that at least a few of you will get some use from it.

Advanced Heroquest PDF character sheet at 1 per page (A4/Letter)

Advanced Heroquest PDF character sheet at 2 per page (A4/Letter)

FLGS not just LGS

There's an acronym I sometimes see thrown around various bits of the internet, and it's FLGS.   It stands for Friendly Local Game Store (or some minor variation thereof).

I'm going to take a minute to get on my soapbox about my local game store, and how the friendliness has been sucked out of it by the looming spectre of sales people.

This probably isn't going to be unfamiliar to anyone that's been in a Games Workshop in the last decade, since they've gained somewhat of a reputation for pushy sales people.  I'm not talking about them; the last thing I'll invite on myself at this point in my life is being cornered by an overenthusiastic redshirt demanding to know what army I collect.  Instead, this is a local, independent stockist of board, card and roleplaying games, which until quite recently held a fair chunk of my esteem.

This unnamed shop (I don't want to harm their sales, as if I actually wielded that ability) is the result of the closure of another that once stood close by a few years ago.  The old shop was everything the new one isn't — it was poorly lit, stock was piled on shelves to alarming capacity, you had to hunt for what you wanted, staff would ignore you as you entered (or at best grunted their acknowledgement of you).  Doesn't sound very inviting, and I'm sure it wasn't.   The shop that has sprung up to replace it is bright, stock is clearly visible, and you are always greeted upon entry.  So why do I long for the former establishment?

It's down to the way the staff view their customers.   Upon entering yesterday with two friends, the person on duty started inquiring after why we were there, and if there was anything we were looking for.  Perhaps this is good practice.  In this instance it felt like I had to justify my presence.  After we gingerly explained that we just wanted to look around, he insisted that he was there if we needed him.  It was a positive relief when two more people entered the shop so he could speak to them instead of monitoring our activities.

This isn't the first time I've felt doubtful there.  Before Christmas, my lady took me to the shop to see if there was anything I wanted for a present.  At that time, we were surprised to find out that the most geeky items had been removed from the shelves to make way for the mainstream Christmas-crowd-friendly boxes that would sell better.   I felt a bit abandoned.  Moreso when the staff member there (a different one from above, whom I thought would have remembered us from previous visits) issued the same line of inquiry into our purchasing needs.

A quick trip a little while before that saw yet another member of staff (how many people do they have working there?!) trying to insist on us buying a game suitable for 6 players instead of a 6-player expansion to a game we already owned.   In this case, the staff member may have had a point, but we had people visiting that all wanted to play that specific game, and the game without expansion was unable to cope with the numbers.

Anyway, back to yesterday.  Feeling like the pressure was off when the staff member was focused on others, I took the opportunity to browse in relative peace.   When I heard him pushing supplements on the two he was speaking to, I actually took a bit of interest... so, congratulations to him on that, at least.  He was suggesting two mini-supplements, both quite cheap, and knowing I had a very limited amount of cash on me I was pleased to think I could afford one.  Y'see, the aim of my visit was more speculative than anything — I suppose I was hoping something would catch my eye, and I could fantasize about purchasing it until I could afford it.  At the culmination of my visit, I picked up the cheaper of the two supplements (for those interested, it's the Great River expansion for Settlers of Catan).   No surprise, the staff member suggested I buy the other one as well.  Sadly, it was only upon me insisting that I had insufficient physical funds to buy both that his enthusiasm waned.

I feel quite let down by the place.  When they first opened, I undertook a quick round of texts to everyone I thought might be interested to promote the shop.   I now feel significantly less inclined to even visit it myself, even though I usually love the charm of bricks-and-mortar hobby shops compared to the stark, efficient designs of websites.  I'm very interested in promoting modern gaming, and I really wish I could feel confident that I could direct people to this shop and they'd have a positive experience.   I feel almost bad for those non-gamers I've already sent there.   Ultimately, I have no choice — there's no other game shop anywhere near as local.

Ah well, that's my rant.  Any suggestions (even if it's just "suck it up and cope") gratefully welcomed in the comments.