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.

Double Review: Hive & Hive Pocket

Title: Hive
Title: Hive Pocket
Publisher: Gen42
Players: 2
Play time: Around 20 minutes per game
Prerequisites: A flat surface

I'm going to save a little time, both for myself and you, dear reader, by reviewing Hive and Hive Pocket simultaneously ("Is he allowed to do that?!") which is pretty easy since Hive Pocket is basically a travel version of Hive, so they're different versions of the same game.

Let's start with the gameplay.  Hive is sort of like chess, with the different minibeasts* each having its own movement rules (for the record, utterly different to those of chess).  The aim is to completely surround the opponent's queen bee, either with your own pieces or your opponent's, or any combination thereof.  Basically, if she's surrounded, it's croaksville for her.

It's dissimilar to chess in that there's no board to play on.  The playing area is dynamic, dependent upon how play goes -- the hive is made up as hexagonal pieces are added and generally grows through play.  Which neatly brings me to the two choices a player has.  Every turn, a player may either place a new piece, ensuring it is connected to the hive and only touching others of its own colour, or move a piece, not breaking the links of the hive.

The ThoughtonBOT once again forces me into submission, proving that she is amazing and talented, and I really should just give up on games permanently

There's a lot of strategy to it, and practiced players will likely dominate lesser-practiced ones.  That said, I think there is a point where the game can be mastered, although I'm not personally there yet.  I also don't think that Hive could be played indefinitely, but honestly I think I'd say the same of chess, so make of that what you will.

Let's talk about the physical components and practicalities of play.  I've mentioned before, Hive is a play-almost-anywhere game, and because it's relatively short-form I recommend taking it to exotic places to play, like beaches, restaurants, mountain tops and your friend's houses.  There's no board, and the pieces are made of sturdy Bakelite.  I've dropped them a few times, and none have ever cracked or chipped (warning: that's not to say they can't or won't).

So what about Hive Pocket, and how is it different?  Well, as expected with a travel version, it's smaller, which means you need less space to play it in -- not that Hive was really demanding much space to begin with.  It's also lighter, which for me means I'm much more likely to put it in a bag that I take with me "just in case a game breaks out".  It also comes with the two expansions, namely the Mosquito and Ladybug, all as part of the standard game.  The original Hive didn't have these pieces -- to get them, you'd need to buy the expansions, which my own LGS carries, though asking a little more than seems fair for two hexagons of Bakelite.  The new pieces do change up the game just a little bit, but nothing is compelling you to use them; just put them back in the drawstring bag if you don't feel like including them today.

Would I recommend Hive?  Absolutely.  This is a fantastic little game, and a perfect gateway boardgame (even if it technically has no board) to get people interested in playing more than Monopoly, as well as standing on its own as a fine game for veteran gamers.  It asks players to think strategically, but can happily be played while conversing or drinking tea or beer or motor oil**.  Between the two versions, I'd recommend Hive Pocket.  While it might be a little easier to lose the smaller pieces, it comes in at about 60% of the cost with two expansions included, and the game doesn't seem to suffer or get fiddly due to the smaller physical components.  Now I own both, I think the travel version is the one that'll see the most use by far, and there's really no reason to break out the bigger set unless two sets of people want to play simultaneously.

So, yeah... go ahead, push some bugs around, it's good fun.

* A more accurate term for bugs or insects.  But there's a spider in there, which is technically neither of those two.
** Hey, I'm not judging.

Review: Zombie Dice

Title: Zombie Dice
Publisher: Steve Jackson Games
Players: 2 to any number (but between 3 and 10 is probably optimal)
Play time: Depends on players (about 3-8 minutes per player)
Prerequisites: Some paper and a pen, or something else to keep score

For theme, I really should have done this review yesterday (Friday the 13th).  Can we all just pretend it's yesterday?

Zombie Dice is a short-form play-almost-anywhere game of pushing your luck to impress your zombie pals.  The premise is, you're all zombies, competing to become the one true Zombie King, because, y'know, zombies need strict hierarchies or their society falls into chaos.  One of the most appealing things (and what eventually persuaded me to buy the game) is that I don't need to describe how to play.  There's a Flash demo that stylishly introduces you to the concepts and rules in a matter of minutes.  Find it hither.

Cool.  You done enjoying that?  I like the way the zombie talks.  Reminds me of me in the mornings.

So, you've seen the virtual game, how about the physical version?  For your monies, you get a short, reasonably sturdy tube (which doubles as a dice shaker) full of 13 six-sided custom dice.  When I first saw the game in my friendly local gaming shop, the first question that popped into my mind was: does everyone need to buy their own dice to play?  The answer is a very reassuring "no".  Everyone involved in a game plays with the same 13 dice.  And the number of players is really only limited by the number of people you can persuade to play.

My slightly tattered Zombie Dice

That said, I can see that as the number of people increases so does the tendency to lose focus, as well as the impracticality of maintaining scores.  Likewise, boredom might set in the longer a particular player has to wait for his or her turn, so I'd cap the number of players at about the same level as how many people you'd generally be happy carrying out a conversation with at any one time (for me, that's about 10).

There's strategy to be had in the game, but it's mostly limited to "should I push my luck?"  The dice in the game come in 3 different colours, clearly indicating whether a die is likely to come out as favourable or not, and cunning players will obviously take account of how many favourable dice remain to be rolled.  Since the game mechanics allow for only one winner, the way it's played will change depending on how ahead or behind other players' scores one is -- think like a multi-player version of darts.  There can be only one Zombie King, so if one player is very close to getting the prerequisite 13 brains, other players will start to take risks just to catch up.

Does hilarity ensue?  Mostly, yes.  I don't think Zombie Dice will suit everyone, and it's a lot more fun if you get into the moment (putting on your best zombie drawl, pretending that 3 red dice are a group of survival nuts with double-barreled shotguns, etc.).  Since it's short-form, it's better played in a very casual setting, or as a filler between other games.  It's self-contained and doesn't require much table real estate, so it's perfectly suited to play in a pub*, and apart from losing the dice themselves, there's no risk of coming back missing any small parts.  Zombie Dice has a pretty good chance of ending up in a bag if I'm meeting up with people of the gaming persuasion, and that sounds like a recommendation to me.

* US followers, please read: bar.  Medieval followers, please read: tavern.