New Year, New Games!

Happy 2025 everyone! It’s very late I know, but then again, I’ve really been laggard in updating this blog. No excuses. I’ve been away on holidays for nearly 4 weeks. 2 weeks at the end of December and 2 weeks at the beginning of January to add on top of that a nasty cough right at the turn of the new year. Sigh.


Anyways, updates:


My Hive Secundus campaign came to a successful end. More on that later. (And I mean, later).


New/old games I played in 2024:

  • The Walking Dead: All Out War
  • Anno Domino 1666 (it’s a board game I know but the rules are tabletop skirmish rules)
  • Necromunda
  • Core Space
  • Deadzone
  • Eden : Survive the Apocalypse 
  • Sword Weirdos
  • Warcrow

The Walking Dead: All Out War

I surprisingly enjoyed the game but the original starter is just too limited in what you can do from a longevity aspect. 

Thankfully, Mantic got the license back and is re-issuing all the minis and campaigns and scenarios that they published way back when. So I’ll probably get one of the expansions (Atlanta most likely) and that book with all the rules and campaigns in it and get a campaign going. The rules are easy enough for even newbies to play and you can play solo, co-op or PvP with zombies as the NPCs to screw you up.


Anno Domini 1666

This is a game I’ll return to in 2025 because the period is so evocative for me (Renaissance) and for historical gaming in general. Even the game is created by tabletop gamers (By Fire and Ice, and it's the Polish Renaissance era, nothing to do with GRRM.) So everything is historically accurate in terms of costumes, armour and weaponry. Then they added an ALTERNATE history 17th century complete with magic and monsters ... but in a suitably historical manner, i.e. 'what if' whatever magic spells and monster the people of the 17th century believed in were actually real?


The minis are gorgeous and the reason why I stopped playing was because (altogether now) "I want to paint the minis first." Speed paints to the rescue! 

Did I mention that combat and spellcasting are diceless? (The d20 is just to keep track of the score). Everything is done with bespoke cards. This will probably be #2 on my to-do list after Necromunda. Or #3. It's vying with Core Space now.


Necromunda

Notice I didn’t specify Hive Secundus. That’s because I picked up an original Necromunda Underhive 2017 starter (see photo above) for about 50% off (my FLGS just wanted to get rid of old stock I guess) and I got some very nice tiles, tactic cards, terrain, and 2 complete gangs: Escher and Goliaths.

It’s a crime how GW keeps pushing the prices of their games higher and higher and at the same time give you less and less.

In 2017, for £75 (if the Wayback Machine is correct) you got:

  • 2 full gangs,
  • 2 terrain sprues (doors and what they call obstacles and objectives)
  • Tactics cards!
  • Gang cards
  • 9 thick map tiles!
  • Along with templates, dice, rules, etc.

In 2024, for £110, you get:

  • 2 full gangs
  • 2 measly thin paper maps 😑
  • 1 door sprue (they can hardly NOT give you that since the included campaign calls for closed and open doors)
  • Gang cards (NO Tactic cards)
  • Templates, dice, rules etc.

Plastic map tiles and Gang Tactic Cards are available as separate purchases. Which add another £20-100+ on top of the purchase price of the starter. Oh, and they don’t even TELL you what the gang tactics are. Those are in ANOTHER separate book purchase! Thank goodness for Yaktribe.com and (koff koff) a little site located in Russia called Necroraw.ru or something like that.

Apparently, for a bit extra, you can also buy the Necromunda Hive War starter with 2 gangs, rules and more importantly the equivalent of one box of Zone Mortalis Walls and Columns. Which aren’t enough to do anything except sparsely populate the small and thin paper mat they include in the box. More purchases if you want an actual, complete game!


But enough of GW’s predatory pricing. (Side note: they increased prices AGAIN for all their products so after I get some of the original gangs - Cawdor, Corpse Grinders and Van Saar - it’s going to be 3D printing for me from now on!)


Now, to be clear: Necromunda the game is AWESOME. Skirmish, old school and very very swingy and crazy and provides lots of crazy cinematic moments. Your psyker can make a guy fall off the stairs? Cool! Your lowly cheap 25pt Juve with a combat knife just killed your 200pt Champion with a plasma gun? Cool! 


Added to that, Necromunda isn’t a competitive game (the rules make that impossible) AND you are actually ENCOURAGED to make up your own gangs and kit bash your own models. So yeah, if you’re ever tempted to get into the grimdark world of the 41st Millennium, this is the way to go! For the price of one of their 40K starter boxes (that isn’t really enough for any serious gaming) you get a complete game! (More or less, see my rant on GW predatory pricing above). Then for the rest, you kit bash or 3D print.


Core Space

I finally got reunited with my Core Space: First Born box so I’ll be painting up the minis (hah) and finish off the campaign that I started way back in early 2023.

That's a lotta minis! So it's got to be the baddies first (green minis), then the NPCs (blue, brown, non-grey minis) then the original crew for First Born.


Deadzone 3.0

Recently there’s been an uptick in interest for DZ in my local gaming group so I hope to get some more games played in 2025, including getting more minis painted.


Eden: Survive the Apocalypse

This is an interesting game. It’s already an incredibly niche product in a niche niche (not a typo) of the tabletop gaming hobby… but the rules are so fun! You get 3 actions but the decisions you need to make on HOW to use them are core to the game: spend them on all out attacks or game objectives, leaving none for defence… or keep some back for defence at the expense of the scenario objectives?)

The minis are full of character but are very specific so you can’t stat up your own war band like you can with Necromunda and the Weirdos series. You could proxy, I guess. There are enough weird post-apocalyptic 3D models out there now to be able to do this and just use that model’s specific card and stats to play.


The rules are free as are the cards, so there’s nothing stopping you from giving the game a try. Just be aware the game originates from France so the English rulebook and components are a bit squiffy.


Sword/Space Weirdos

Just the fact you can take your favourite minis, stat up a war band according to WYSIWYG and go for it makes this a winner in my book. 

Add in a 3 action economy, and a d6 table that can give you some odd results when you engage in combat and you have a really fun, unpredictable, story driven game that gives you the cinematic craziness of Necromunda in a much smaller, tighter and cheaper package. (I’m only getting into Necromunda because the models are SO GOOD).


Warcrow

This is about the only game I won’t be getting into although I can probably get in some games at my FLGS if I’m so minded. The non-standard scale, expensive models (thermoplastic resin) and Yet Another Squad Warband Skirmish rule set makes this a non-starter for me.

HOWEVER, if the models appeal to you, and you like the way the game plays (and I admit the game play is interesting) and the whole rock, paper, scissors* aspect of war band building appeals to you, give it a try. Preferably at your FLGS before you shell out your hard earned cash.


So that’s my 2024 roundup. I’ll got to what I plan to play in 2025 in my next post.


Happy gaming, everyone! What's did you guys play in 2024?


*Much like its sibling game Infinity, Warcrow has this aspect of including specific specialist models to boost your war band squads and counter your opponent’s war band specialists.

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