The last two months have been ok for progress, but not in the way I'd been hoping for. I ended up getting distracted from one of my projects to start another (which I as usual believed would be short, in a delusional way). I did, however, finish building this Starfighter, which was not a fun kit but I am reasonably pleased with the end result. I am also getting very close to finishing my entire backlog of Privateer Press miniatures. But neither of these seem to have much impact on my games, so let's get to that. Danger CloseMight as well START with making excuses: I have made 0% progress on this between focus on Skies Far Beyond and waiting for some new miniatures. I have an order coming from Tumbling Dice that got deplyed containing my T-28 Trojans, which are essential for the Farm Gate era... so I just decided to hold off to I can get the maximum value out of those miniatures when they eventually show up. I'm also still looking for good map making software. I like Hexdraw, but you can't buy it right now and the producer isn't getting back to me, so I'm kinda in limbo here... not great. But once those Trojans are here, I'll be all over this, I swear. Skies Far BeyondMassive progress on this. I went through the rulebook front to back and made revisions and refinements, which was quite the project, and I played quite a few very useful and enjoyable games. This one is feeling pretty well developed now, and with each game the refinements are getting much more incremental. I still have some concerns that late-game aircraft are too complex, but I guess that's expected in high-level games of many RPGs with more crunch. Both campaigns are about to hit big inflection points, and I think the first campaign I started is over the halfway point narratively. The players are getting into Tier 3 aircraft now, too so, the mechanical complexity is ramping up and this is where the planes get really well-tested. The F-105 is more advanced in this regard because one player jumped in one early, and it was very helpful. Perhaps best of all, the missile rules feel good now. They are very effective, but have clear counterplay. Getting hit with some missiles is an "it's OVER" moment, but they tend to be easier to evade, while others are bad but not instant death. I'm quite happy with the way they prey on low-speed aircraft, which tend to be more maneuverable, so missile-armed interceptors have a viable strategy against them. Star Wars Armada Solitaire CampaignWell... this happened. I really like Armada but not having a regular opponent for two years, I decided to get my browsepiece on about solitaire systems and found Crabbok's. I have played a bit with it and it's ok, but of course I had to go and do a much of work on it including a campaign system. So now I'm wrist deep in this. Fortunately, since the work is based off an existing game, this won't take nearly as long as any of my originals. And it has been fun to get the ships on the table. My own improvements to Crabbok's basic but very streamlined AI are just getting tested now and I do like the changes, since it enables more clear roles for enemy ships (including carriers, which the current system is pretty bad at). The biggest changes are the enemy ships and squadrons now have one of three classes assigned to them, each with unique action selection and behaviours, and the addition of dice to streamline things a bit so you don't have to spend so much time flipping cards. Otherwise, the campaign module is based off Rebellion in the Rim. It introduces continuity to the games, with persistent fleets, but no big map to take care of. It's a nice and compact package. So far it's been a good time in testing. I have no idea how long this will take. But I am enjoying the process, and until the T-28s are here, I need some way to play with myself. Goals for March/April 2023This should be pretty self-explanatory.
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