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How do!

This is spinning off from a post I made in the HeroQuest thread in N&R.

Short version? Got the mythic tier, last night had some friends over for some dungeon spelunking.

Context for importance? It was in 1989 that, as a snivelling irrul Grot that I got HQ for my birthday. That basically sealed me fate as a nerd, and I’ve never looked back.

Yes, my gaming experience goes well beyond such a simple take on it. But by gum it still holds up. Sure it’s basic, but it’s satisfying. The quests require some planning for the hero, and indeed the villain. There’s simply no downside to HeroQuest, and I’m totally made up that the remake didn’t try to reinvent that particular wheel.

And so in that post I declared it, as the thread title says? Chicken Soup for the Wargamer’s Soul. It’s wholesome. It’s satisfying. It doesn’t require a massive amount of know-how or preparation, and I bloody love it.

But….Dakka. I may be horrifically grey under the hair dye, and certainly no spring chicken, but I accept I’ve not played the whole gamut of games.

So I ask of you…..which game or indeed games, do you consider Chicken Soup for the Wargamer’s Soul? As ever, include your why!

Pulp Alley. My friend bought everyone in our game group a copy one day. I thanked him but didn’t really want to play 1920s-1940s primarily because I didn’t want to buy a whole new bunch of miniatures and terrain. I didn’t even read the game until six months later when he really started pressing.

In short, I missed out on 6 months of playing the bar none coolest skirmish game ever. I have played a lot, a lot of games since the 80s and none of them come close to the performance of pulp Alley.

It’s infinitely reskinnable so I didn’t have to buy any new miniatures or terrain. It easily handles pretty much any genre. It uses polyhedral dice but every roll has to be a 4+ to count as a success so no charts to look up.

When your guy is attacked, he can actually choose to attack back instead of just standing around. Fighting multiple times in a turn makes you lose a dice each time so you can wear down powerhouse guys.

The rules are tightly written and it’s obvious that they play tested the stuffing out of the game. It’s got an excellent campaign system and a card deck system that can be used to buff or gotcha. It’s just very well done. So much so that we played it almost exclusively for the past 3-4 years.

The Osprey Wargaming Series

Sure, they aren't all amazing and I have not played them all; but I always walk away with a new appreciation, learning, or take on a genre I knew little about before.

They were and are a breath of fresh air into wargaming.

Oh my friend, we need you to be more specific than a given company!

Because some of us (hi!) are idiots, and can’t like the company to a specific game or games we might’ve played.

Post Heroquest I did pick up a copy of Samurai Blades though, which I suspect might’ve been Osprey?

There are a lot of games with a nostalgic tug from my youth that I’m not sure I’d be up for playing again. Car Wars and SFB were great at the time, but it’s not like I want to spend a weekend recapturing that.

But more simple games like Ogre or classic Battletech, yes. Get some old friends around the table and be swept right back to the 80’s.

Mine is also Hero Quest, though with a fairly different story.

When I was around 4 my parents finally said yes to my increscent pestering to let me play with their Hero Quest game (and incidentally their Dragon Strike game too if you recall that, but Hero Quest is the one that stuck with me more as the board was so much more customizable).

I became enthralled with being the Dungeon Master (or Zargon as it is for HQ) and would often just play it by myself, building challenges for the Heroes I was also playing to overcome, learning what was the right amount of difficult to be fun. That game got A Lot of love and I still consider it my childhood in a box. I was still very young though and slowly the pieces got broken and lost over the many years. (I only have a single painted Chaos Warrior left from that set now).

A little over a decade ago my mom found HQ on e-bay for me and gave it to me for Christmas. It was the only time I think I actually got my old man to sit down and play a game with the family and is a memory I still cherish greatly. I took much better care of that copy, but when I had my son, I felt like I knew what was inevitable going to happen.

As he got older and watched me paint my 40k models and play my board games, he began incessantly asking to have some of his own. So, I broke out my Hero Quest game and taught him to play and he took to it like a fish to water. Now we play a few quests a month and every time Grandma comes over he pulls her to the gaming table and weaves crazy adventures for her and his brother and sister (who is still a bit young for it but loves being included).

Right after I decided to pass on my copy of HQ with joy, but also sadness that I was parting with something so precious to me, the remaster came out and I was over the moon. I got in on that faster that you could say "shut up and take my money" and just got my delivery the other day, and am having some friends over next weekend for our first session.

I love the redesign, that stayed so true to the original, I love that they included the final stretch goal that we didn't meet for free even though they could have sold it separately and people would have still bought it, and I love the feeling I get when I put those old models on the table in their new forms and look forward to getting into the new quests and writing my own.

So yeah, that's my story.

(Side note, does anyone know why the Fimer was replaced with the Abomination? Was that just a legal rights thing? I've wondered since it was my favorite creature from the game.)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Oh my friend, we need you to be more specific than a given company!

Because some of us (hi!) are idiots, and can’t like the company to a specific game or games we might’ve played.

Post Heroquest I did pick up a copy of Samurai Blades though, which I suspect might’ve been Osprey?

Not even the company..... just the Osprey Wargaming Series of blue books.

 Tawnis wrote:

(Side note, does anyone know why the Fimer was replaced with the Abomination? Was that just a legal rights thing? I've wondered since it was my favorite creature from the game.)

Probably a combination of legal rights... and certain dodgy aspects of the Fimir background in Warhammer Fantasy. See this blog article (Wayback Machine link because the blog is giving me a database error right now): https://web.archive.org/web/20210816061418/http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2014/04/07/bizarre-bestiary-fimir/

Be warned that reading that might destroy your love for the Fimir.

I try not to delve too much into games from my distant past. The memory of them is more charitable than the reality. Ive already had a few things ruined by revisitation. Transformers, fireball island, heroquest, to name but a few unfortunate casualties.

But one title i keep coming back to despite an on and off again love affair, is wiz war. Specifically, the 8th ed. Much maligned by old timers, and yet they missed the forest for the trees when judging it. It is brilliant and so much better in so many design concepts. So i just sat down one day and admitted to myself that i love the game and thats that.

But why.

This one. Like any game, is critically dependant on the players. I usually try to conscript ktg players to join in, since the concepts are already internalized by their brains. Mtg was inspired by wizwar, so without it, mtg likely would never have existed.

Anyways, the joy is in the creativity in how players devise using the spells in the shared deck. It ages like a fine wine, and like all aged wines, are wasted on new taste buds which cannot appreciate its nuances. Once all players are acquainted with how the cards work and the game play flows, a new meta evolves and its a beautiful thing to behold.

Not to mention, just outright fun. Especially if everyone at the table has a healthy sense of mutually assured schadenfreude. Giving as good as they get, and grinning widely with each new interesting arcane punishment devised to be inflicted and then returned in kind.

Applauding an excellent ploy of your murder that has been executed to perfection is expected. Simply because some deaths are so dumb, you cant help but nod with respect to reach that conclusion in sometimes circuitous fashions.

And then there are the inevitable arguments that occur, and the houserules being made, like crafting your own special chicken soup, and only you know why adding a rosebush and a lightning bolt makes it taste as good as it does.

To be honest, for me it's 40k. Not a particular instance - I'd be happy to play Rogue Trader, 2nd edition, any of 'em, or Necromunda, Kill Team, etc, etc. Or just sit and paint some minis. I've dabbled in a lot of games and settings in the last three decades, but it always comes back to Space Marines and Orks for me. It's the setting, and the over-the-top silliness (even when they were taking themselves seriously, it was still a little ridiculous).

It's pretty recent, but X-Wing.

I've played quite the variety of tabletop flight sims going back 20-30 years, and X-Wing just gets it. It feels right, it plays right, it's tense but not complicated in its rules.

Sure, you can go off the deep end into infinite strategy loops, but you really can't go wrong if you just grab a couple generic x-wings and ties and go at it.

Space Hulk. Well balanced. Fun. Nuff said.

An old copy of Wargames Illustrated; the one where they recreate the lion trapping scene from The Ghost & The Darkness.

Whenever I lose my way with this hobby I - for some strange and spooky reason - will stumble across it again, and it will put me back on track. First by finding our inspiration and reference - like any good artist - and then find the right ruleset and models for the game we'd like to play. Then make adjustments.

Sounds simple, but easily forgotten as we succumb to the chanting voices that prepare us for tournaments...even though that may not be our destination at all with this wonderful hobby.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Post Heroquest I did pick up a copy of Samurai Blades though, which I suspect might’ve been Osprey?

If it's the game I'm thinking of, Samurai Blades was published by Standard, spinning off from their Cry Havoc ruleset. Followed up with ones about Vikings and the Crusades, as well as some fantasy variants.

It was the first skirmish game I ever got into, back in the 80s. A definite contender for this thread. Loved that game to bits.

That’s the one!

Is the 2016 Sci-fi game of the same series, or just a coincidence they share the same name?

What? Samurai Blades? I’ve no idea.

The one I had came from a Scout jumble sale. Hex maps, cardboard counters in place of models - though I believe the models were available separately?

SamusDrake wrote:
Is the 2016 Sci-fi game of the same series, or just a coincidence they share the same name?

Pure coincidence.

https://cryhavocfan.org/eng/suite/chstory.htm

For more information.

Cheers for clearing that up.

Samurai Blades included one particularly memorable scenario.

One player took the Ninjas, and had to infiltrate the enemy settlement/base. If you blogged it, the alarm was raised and the target got the chance to get dressed.

Get it right, and you could catch him in just his undies, and murder him to death with greater ease.

That is a rather bizarre scenario.

The entire gaming side of my hobby revolves around finding Chicken soup games that are fun and satisfying and easy to play.

I've already elaborated on the other thread why I feel this way about Heroquest and what a joy it's been too play with my family.

I want a similar experience when wargaming. Essentially I want the experience of the game to give me the same feeling that I have when looking at the pictures of the game or reading the novels, watching genre films, etc.

To that end, my top Chicken soup games are.

Song of Blades and Heroes.
Simple Warband skirmish where every activation decision matters and games typically play in 45 minutes.

Kings of War.
3 editions in and it's still a joy to play. Throw down a massive army and wrap up the battle in a couple hours with almost no book flipping and no list-built, rule-stacking, combo nonsense.

Dragon Rampant
Scratches a similar itch to KOW but for platoon level lose formation skirmish. Also a fantastic game when you're only 1/4 of the way through painting your KOW army.

Mech Attack.
Captures the feel of the Battletech novels and sourcebooks I grew up on better than the Battletech game ever did for me. The ability to fight out a Lance vs Lance in less than 2 hours and still capture the BT feel is gold. Also a fantastic game for conventions. Easy to teach and flipping impressive when played on a big table in 28mm.

Necromunda (NCE EDITION)
Classic Necromunda with the rough edges sanded off by a beautiful community mod. Perfect mix of nostalgia with second edition 40k mechanics that are actually playable. Haven't played the current version but I hope it's half as good. Seeing my gangs on the table in my multi tier layout is Gaming Bliss.

Except for KOW, none of these would satisfy the Tournament player and they could be destroyed by a combo-obsessed list builder. No matter though, because that's not who I am and who I play with. When we get together once a month we're feasting on the chicken soup of easy gaming with good people, painted figures and pretty terrain.

Classic battletech. Although a major headache to learn, once practiced the foundation of movement on a hex based map feels decisive and demonstrably fair. As a map/cartography nerd, I think I even prefer the paper map/2d board.

Now days when i see a gorgeous wargaming table, I just groan internally “line of sight arguments are coming”.

Plus I am a big fan of all the miniatures Ral Partha did through the years, sci-fi or fantasy.

BattleTech is a good one. Whilst BattleTech is infinitely more complex rules than 40k, I never feel like I'm fighting against the rules like I do with 40k. "It just works!" to quote someone who should have never said that out loud.

Necromunda is another one, which despite one mad man's insane insistence that I don't play the game, has been my fav GW game since it's inception.

And finally Warhammer Quest. The original. I love that game specifically because it is unfair. You can never get too good or leap ahead of your fellow Adventurers because the game itself will come along and snap you back to reality with a single roll. I've said it before, but there have been times when we've been more afraid of the journey back to town than of the dungeon we just conquered. That travel chart is harsh. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Yeah, original Warhammer Quest will always be fun.

For me, it's Star Fleet Battles. I can always go back and play that, and when I do I just feel warm and fuzzy.

Mine would probably be an epic game of Epic!

Still remember as a kid my mates and I getting together as a group for a mega game with all of our collections. Setup a 12ft wide table, 25k of points a side with a dozen titans, gargants, entire tank and infantry companies in a game that lasted an entire weekend (we slept in sleeping bags next to the tables, which was in a friends loft).

Still one of my favourite gaming memories and every time I still see the miniatures, the artwork, the site of a game in progress makes me think about it.

I would love to recreate it one day, perhaps with some stuff that is a little better painted!

Care to show some pics? Sounds epic. I have fond memories of Epic Armageddon and some 6k games were pretty awesome as well.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
BattleTech is a good one. Whilst BattleTech is infinitely more complex rules than 40k, I never feel like I'm fighting against the rules like I do with 40k. "It just works!" to quote someone who should have never said that out loud.

Necromunda is another one, which despite one mad man's insane insistence that I don't play the game, has been my fav GW game since it's inception.

And finally Warhammer Quest. The original. I love that game specifically because it is unfair. You can never get too good or leap ahead of your fellow Adventurers because the game itself will come along and snap you back to reality with a single roll. I've said it before, but there have been times when we've been more afraid of the journey back to town than of the dungeon we just conquered. That travel chart is harsh. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

The whq town and travel events kind of make sense when you're a low level hero, but they are absolutely ridiculous (in the good way) when you have a.high level hero. You can slaughter bloodthirster by the dozens, yet get your ass handed to.you by a few drunken.peasants

tneva82 wrote:
Care to show some pics? Sounds epic. I have fond memories of Epic Armageddon and some 6k games were pretty awesome as well.

Sadly, this was probably about 27-28 years ago! Very unlikely we were that organised.. so it just lives on in the memory (sure the miniatures were not as well painted as I remember, so probably best that there weren't photos! )