I just read the Booby Knight rules

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PhoneLobster
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I just read the Booby Knight rules

Post by PhoneLobster »

edit: Worth noting, for those that don't know "Booby Knights" is 'Relic Knights", it's a miniature wargame with anime themed space robots that uses card based randomization/resources.

So anyways, Koumie mentioned the booby knights, and so I went and looked, dug up their rule book pdf on their site and read it all, looked at their model range, skimmed some cards, dug through the bowels of the internet to actually see a glimpse of the Esper master/initiate general actions, etc...

It actually looks over all OK. Without playing it to get familiar with specific "cadre" builds, specific units, and pricing I couldn't say for sure how balanced it is. But it actually looks remotely promising.

But aside from that, minor notes and trivial quibbles list.

1) Bewbs
I'm not sure what I think about all the boobyness in the models and art. I certainly like boobyness. I see it as somewhat in genre for "anime bullshit" or whatever the setting flavor is supposed to be. But there sure is a lot of boobyness, and I might just feel marginally embarrassed about putting almost any army list on the table. I think the one model that consists of a freakish guy pinching some cute girl's butt may be going too far.

But on the other hand the sexy models are downright progressive, mature and certainly restrained compared to the sadomasochistic fetish girls of GW and Privateer press with their endless chains and whips and masks and wounds and spikes and... etc... and little to no other options. So... I think all in all I would generally feel better about owning and playing with these toys than those other toys.

I think I prefer it's choice on the difference between "Includes various Sci Fi Cartoon Pinup Girls draped on robots and exposing cleavage" and "In the grim darkness of the far future there are only S&M mistresses", or in PPs case (yes they abbreviate to Peepee, yes they picked that name themselves), "In the Grim darkness of YAR PIRATES there are only S&M mistresses, who are also YAR PIRATES".

2) Yar Pirates
The game includes space pirates. I normally find pirates in games to be offensive. A) Because often "Yar Pirates!" is a lazy option used by idiots who think it provides instant work free flavor win. B) Because of Privateer Press where EVERYTHING is YAR PIRATES, and also sucked.

However they ARE anime space pirates and that might actually BE an instant work free flavor win, and they actually look pretty characterful and interesting unlike most lame ass Yar Pirates. So I'm unaccountably on board with the Yar Pirates. I mean hell, they have a knock off of Captain Harlock.

3) Yar Prices
OK, it feels just slightly pricy to me. Not out of line with competition... maybe I'm just feeling poor and spending adverse like the rest of Australia is right now, but I feel like this could be cheaper.

4) It's A Card Game... sort of
As far as I can tell all randomizing is through their Esper Decks which essentially act as your primary resource for the costs on basically all actions, certainly most of the ones that matter other than picking up and dropping off objective tokens.

So basically your turn comes up. You've selected your active unit a few turns in advance, you have a hand of cards that might have depleted since you drew it at the end of the last turn (if you spent on defenses) or grown (if you were attacked but spent less on defense than you drew from free defense card draws).

And MAYBE you have the cards you need to pay for well, something and MAYBE you have the cards you need to pay for the thing you actually want to do. and MAYBE you have, or thanks to bonus draw on attack gain, the cards you need to pay for upgrades to the thing you do, and then it just happens and the only way the opponent interferes is if they have or draw on defense the cards they need to pay for a defence option they might have.

And that's it, no dice, just spending cards from your hand. And also some bonus points your units can save up on skipped turns or from "special stuff" like just being awesome and having a thing on their card telling them they get bonus points sometimes.

5) Excessively Complex Simplicity
The rules are relatively simple, the free PDF version of the rules book is only 30 pages, but actually seems to be basically complete. And you can see all the unit cards for free too with all their abilities and such, on separate downloads. So it's all there and relatively well and simply presented.

I have read it once and think I could totally play it no problem with just about full comprehension of how it works and what I could do.

But the rules are also sort of crazy complex sometimes. I mean... there is an "order of operations" list that goes into great detail of what happens before what... and it is a full page of tight text. It looks easy enough to use if you ever had some question or rules conflict... but it's also pretty damned large and elaborate.

Similarly the sheer amount of token tracking and the ready units thing and the... look just...

6) The sheer amount of token tracking
OK so every model has many hit points and you'll be tracking them by marking cards, made marginally awkward by the apparent direction to keep many of those cards in an "idle" deck in between queuing them up for use.

Also you will be tracking held esper points on your cards.

Also aside from your active, queued and idle unit cards (with various white board marker dots rapidly smearing off them as you shuffle them around) all your units ALSO have separate reference cards with their actual actions on that you just keep handy for reference.

Also you have your Esper draw deck, discard deck, and current hand.

Also each player has their models on the board representing all their units, and terrain bases and items and such, a fairly large number, not unusual but worth mentioning, yes the usual war game stuff IS there and being managed and wrangled.

Also each player has a fairly big based "Primary Objective" model/token on the board.

Also each player has two basically human model sized models/tokens as "Secondary objectives" on the board.

Also each player can put "boost" tokens on the board, basically human model base sized. Boost tokens do different buff/debuff/land mine/terrain like effects... things... You can have "any number of them but no more than 2 of the same type". There are 9 types of boost. You COULD have up to 18 boost markers on the board. (also the one notably ambiguity I encountered in the rule book was a poor explanation of precisely where I could place these tokens). Now I think, at least in smaller games, you won't actually have all 18 of these, because they cost points, and if you had 18 you basically blown most of your army on it, they are largely meant as filler, but still. That's more tokens.

Also you are going to be earning victory points for various things so each player will want to track that somehow, and tokens would be a good way to do it (but not specifically recommended, they may have been feeling excessive token guilt by that point).

Also many units seem to have "AoE" abilities, that basically drop a token/model on the board representing the AoE and everything within 3 inches of the base is in it, and it is a lingering thing that sticks around until someone spends an action to move it or destroy it. And there are rather a lot of these things, and they are almost all damn well unique tokens.

The tokens REALLY kick in however when it comes to interacting with objectives. So for various buffs, debuffs and for one of the 6 primary missions each player will have, AND for one of the 6 secondary missions each player may have, AND for one of the 2 bonus objectives both players may have you pick up and drop tokens on objectives, board edges, and units.

Now... even before you account for your specific special primary and secondary missions, you can put tokens on and off your primary and secondary objectives that provide various buffs and debuffs. There are 4 sorts of buff/debuff tokens that you can attach onto (or remove from) each and every objective token on the map. And in the absence of mission token actions you WILL do this sometimes when you lack the hand resources to perform actual attack actions. AND these tokens are ALSO tracked separately by the players who own them, so you have friendly AND (each) enemy token of each type somehow tracked separately on each objective marker!

(Let me briefly take this moment to point out that the only notable error I have spotted so far in the rule book is that the secondary missions are listed TWICE in row.)

AND THEN... you have your mission specific tokens. And remember, even in a small two player game you have between 4-6 missions. In fact, no matter the "size" of the game you will always have a number of missions active equal to between (2xNumber Of Players) to (that number +2).

So some of the missions don't use tokens (3 of 14 missions). Though... stupidly one of those would be best represented by placing a unique token type on a specific enemy model, and others like it DO that, but this one was just an oversight or something...

Others use the same existing tokens that are standard buff/debuff tokens you put onto or take off objectives already anyway (6 of 14 missions).

And the remaining 5 out of 14 missions ALL use unique tokens you move around on models, objectives and board edges.

AND AND AND, there are 6 factions. Each faction has a faction specific mission in play in addition to the randomised primary and secondary missions. One out of those 6 missions doesn't use tokens. One out of 6 of those missions uses a "common" objective buff token. One out of 6 of those missions doesn't say it uses a token but totally places a token on a model. And the remaining 3 all have unique tokens that move around the board on models and objective markers.

Just to run through, in any given game you might have...

Models
Terrain
Unit Cards (Active, Linked, Queued and the Idle stack where you smear the damage off)
Damage on Unit Cards (smeared)
Held Esper points on Unit Cards (smeared)
Unit Reference Cards
Esper Cards (draw, discard and hand)
Primary Objective markers (differentiated by player)
Secondary Objective Markers (differentiated by player, and the 2 per player need to be different enough to each other to identify for tracking damage separately)
Handy cards describing your objectives this game
Victory point tokens or tally of some kind
Objective Secure Tokens (different ones for each player)
Objective Sabotage Tokens (different ones for each player)
Objective Powered Tokens (different ones for each player)
Objective Infused Tokens (different ones for each player)
Conservation Mission Tokens (different for each player)
Assassination tokens (different for each player)
Heist Tokens (Different for Each Player)
Calamity Tokens (don't need to be differentiated but you need to track how many each player has destroyed as well as the ones on the board)
Crystal Tokens (Don't need to be differentiated but you need to track how many each player has destroyed as well as the ones on the board)
Justice Tokens (different for each player)
Cargo Tokens (different for each player)
Slave Tokens (don't seem to need to be different?)
Booty Tokens (don't seem to need to be different)

And yes you are unlikely to use ALL those in a single game, but out of the "optional" ones you could easily still be using 1 faction token per player, and 2 standard mission tokens per player and the 2 "special" mission token types. For even in a small two player game the "full" 8 differentiated "optional" tokens on top of the 4 standard objective tokens, the 4-6 types of differentiated objective markers themselves, and the ??? number of tokens for persistent AoEs.

7) The Ready Units thing
I like the ready units thing. I like that the players take turns and basically activate one unit each so things roll along nicely without giant 1 hour goes. (excepted when a unit is linked and fuck you I got a double go!, also mildly ambiguous of where the hell linked units "come from" queue wise)

And yes, I can see how the queue is a mechanic for ensuring there is a fixed amount of turns before you can activate the same unit again. (changes with game size and nothing else).

AND I can see how the planning ahead with the queue does... something... in basically ensuring that you are tied into a specific unit selection well before you have any damn idea what cards you might have to spend on it's actions when you get to that. Though, that is a bit tough.

But it seems a little elaborate. It would make more sense being that elaborate if the idle deck was a random draw deck, you had a discard pile that forced you to cycle all units before they get to act again, and the queue that varies with game size was actualy how many units you activated per turn. But it doesn't work like that, it's always one unit per turn, the Queue ONLY prevents repeat actions with last turns unit, there is no cycling discard pile and when you draw from the idle deck you PICK what you queue up.

As it is it REALLY seems to be an over complex way of doing a marginally acceptable unit activation cooldown limiter, with a kinda annoying "fuck you and your future plans" sabotage mechanic that handily combines a piled up idle "deck" that seems to exist in that form EXCLUSIVELY so you can't easily see the damage/held esper points on half the units AND they all are getting rubbed and smeared off anyway for no reason.

I really can't focus enough on this smearing thing. I played warmachine. The card sleeves+whiteboard markers thing was brilliant. But even then it smeared about sometimes, now you want me to stick all those cards in a deck and rub them around sorting through them every time someone wants to know their status and each turn when selecting the next to queue up.

8) Objectively pro terror
Also. The game has exceedingly free deployment rules, you can put your stuff (models, objectives, boosts, all those tokens just sort of turn up attached to those or appear later) pretty much anywhere on the table other than within 9 inches of enemy stuff.

Then movement on units is pretty nice. Most turns you move, act, then move some more.

The board is LITTERED with ongoing AoE markers that buff and debuff you. And there are all those mission related tokens to move around, and you will because some turns you wont have the resources for your action to be "attack or whatever the model does" and the picking up and putting down tokens bullshit is basically a resource cost free action.

But then the missions, oh boy the missions. They sound diverse and fun, but... they are questionable in that diversity. Some are incredibly easy and doable within the casual process of normal play... and others are elaborate, risky and improbably unlikely to occur before "everyone is dead, screw victory points, last man standing wins" occurs.

So you could easily have a player trying to stick tokens on and off your models, the board edge, your objective markers, their objective markers, and carry them in between those things, while you are trying to do pretty much all those things as well, only maybe with completely different tokens.

In practice the victory points threshold is relatively low, and you get points for easy stuff like unit and commander kills too. So you basically kill 2 enemy units, get 1 primary mission and win, or 2 secondary and 1 unit, or 1 commander, 1 secondary, 1 other unit kill, etc... But all those objectives are still out there, along side highly mobile units that can deploy almost anywhere on the board.

Even if we pretend that stuff like "kill any 3 units you can (still get standard victory points for killing them too!)" and "kill that one guy you nominated (still get standard victory points for killing them)" is equal to stuff like (stick tokens on 5 different objectives all over the map" or "place tokens on the 3 different objectives the ENEMY got to place and deploy near!".

Even if you pretend the missions aren't of wildly differing difficulty it's still a lot of objectives to track, pick between, and most notably attempt to defend against. Even in a small two player game.

The variety is nice... but it seems a bit worryingly over the top.

9) Inches and Millimeters and Tigers, Oh My
I would like to take a moment to point out.

The game uses abstract height units for LoS, their LoS is a nice system, their "what counts as a blocking obstacle!" rules are a bit weird and complex but it's nice 2d lines to bases with abstracted height and cover stuff that beats out bullshit GW style "I can see your fucking nose through that terrain crack!" arguments.

But they can't seem to settle on units. They have abstract Height, Inches for ranges, and then formalized fixed bases sizes printed on cards... in Diameter in milliliters!

I know WHY they did this. But fuck it, why couldn't they have just done ranges in centimeters and at least had consistency with their base sizes which are IN those sizes because modern manufacturers don't still live in the fucking dark ages of imperial measurement units like all to many wargamers do.

10) Not Enough Giant Robots
So. It's a game that SEEMS to want to be about unique named giant robots. Which they have like maybe 1 or 2 per faction to start with. And it SEEMS to want to be about special unique characters which they have tons of, BUT they still insist on having nameless multiple model mook unit filler...

They are flat out making the same mistakes warmachine did in some respects. Or so it seems.

Not enough giant robot selection. And even having rules at all for mook squads in what seems to be intended to be special character skirmishes rather than large scale encounters.

And they undermine it further, every army MUST be lead by a giant robot rider. Only they then turned around and made a second kind of leader WITHOUT a giant robot that you can just take instead, and everyone gets one of those to pick from just to ensure no one HAS to take the giant robots that are the god damn draw of the whole game.

If it then turns out like warmachine that the non-robot special characters and the nameless infantry mooks turn out to be better, or more points efficient than the big robots... then they will have made ALL the mistakes warmachine did and resulted in NOT ENOUGH GIANT ROBOTS.

Also they even throw in a thing where you aren't allowed to have more than a certain (small) number of giant robots in your smaller armies, even if you could miraculously jam in 2 robot knights in your 30 point game, screw you, NOT ALLOWED! Fortunately there are some non-knight robots... but not enough of them are giant enough...




So anyway. That's all I can think to say on it for now. Interesting but... interesting...
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Sat Jun 21, 2014 4:01 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: I just read the Booby Knight rules

Post by Koumei »

I'm glad the name is catching on. I will comment on some of your observations/concerns.
PhoneLobster wrote:I think the one model that consists of a freakish guy pinching some cute girl's butt may be going too far.
Yeah, that's basically where I draw the line. I feel like they've really let themselves down with that one model.
But on the other hand the sexy models are downright progressive, mature and certainly restrained compared to the sadomasochistic fetish girls of GW and Privateer press with their endless chains and whips and masks and wounds and spikes and...
Yeah. I felt that as terrible as it is to say this, it's more progressive than 40k having "Theoretically some Guard are female. A couple of Eldar are female. The bladed-whip gladiatrices of the Dark Eldar are mostly female. Then there's the Sisters of Battle, who explicitly exist to do what the creepy old (male) paedophiles tell them to do. THAT IS ALL."

I mean, Calico Kate might look like an up-busted Lina Inverse and might be riding a mecha with a head that looks like a giant cock, but hey, she's the boss of the pirates!

I should also at this point mention that the same company made a card game about tentacle monsters in an all-girls school (no rape references made, they're trying to "blend in secretly", but if you bought the game, you damn well know what they're mentioning). It was denied from Kickstarter. They also are making Wrath of Kings, a minis skirmish game that uses friggin d10s with look-up charts (every unit has a table with what the ten numbers mean for them when attacked). It is more Warhammer Fantasy-ish in setting, and as such, has weird almost-naked werewolf ladies and weird almost-naked demon-mask women with sacrificial knives, and a lady with a whip and a gimp on a leash. They even did some crossovers with fucking Kingdom Death. Just don't google that one, you will actually be sick.

So Booby Knights is their one step forward, everything else equalling 2-3 steps back. But at least they had that step forward at all, unlike the big players in the industry.

I also checked with another friend, and she's straight so there isn't the bias of "But I like tits so I'm okay with this". She also agrees that it's less bad than what Gee-Dub and PeePee offer.
Prices
Sadly, that's tabletop wargaming for you. It was some time ago that I backed it (two full factions, the rules, two decks of cards, a set of tokens, two special characters, and a fold-out map to play on), and the price then was pretty decent considering. But full price is going to probably be about the same as GW and PP.
4) It's A Card Game... sort of
Yeah. Hilariously, they state that it's not just randomly rolling dice, it's all about resource management, tactics and the luck of the draw. Sure, randomly drawing (but not shuffling back in) is different to dice rolling, as the odds of specific cards will gradually change, but you don't get to go "It's not about the randomness" and then go "and luck (randomness)".

That said, though I just accept that cards will be lost or damaged, I think I'm okay with this, especially the various "Generates 1 X every turn" things and the double-use of cards (each card can be used as 1 of 1 colour or 2 of another colour). It'll at least be interesting to see how that plays out, allowing for more conservative players to only attempt things when they actually have those cards right now (or when those cards are among the few remaining in the deck), while high-risk players can shoot for the "And all I need is to draw three orange and two red on five cards!"

I think it has potential to work. And my dislike of using cards applies more to when one player in an RPG needs 10-20 cards and will therefore forget at least some of them most of the time.
5) Excessively Complex Simplicity
Everything you say here is true.

That said, there are two things they mention that make me laugh.

1. "This is the fucking future, guns can shoot further than you can throw them" as their explanation for ranged weapons having a range of "Yes". They're explicitly making fun of 40k there, and I approve.

2. "You can measure whenever you like". 40k recently added this amazing rule, but until then, any time any game spelled it out, it was to stick two fingers up to 40k with its "NO PREMEASURING" rules and the insane fans who throw fits over that.

And yeah. Drawing line of sight is so much easier and more sensible than 40k, and also is made to work really easily with virtual tabletop stuff for people who just want to play the game and not paint minis.

I'm not looking forward to actually tracking tokens and markers though. It will be worse than keeping track of individual Wounds in a Nid army (the kind with Monsters and Warriors and Swarms rather than 100 Gaunts) or Hull Points + Resurrection Tokens in a Necron army.
7) The Ready Units thing
Yeah, it looks pretty good, but I can see better ways of handling it.
10) Not Enough Giant Robots
That's a valid criticism.
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Re: I just read the Booby Knight rules

Post by PhoneLobster »

Koumei wrote:1. "This is the fucking future, guns can shoot further than you can throw them" as their explanation for ranged weapons having a range of "Yes". They're explicitly making fun of 40k there, and I approve.
I was going to mention this but it got away from me in the write up. It's interesting, I think I like it, but I worry how it will interact with the busy board and the complex elaborate "everyone is everywhere doing everything" issues of the deployment/missions stuff.
2. "You can measure whenever you like". 40k recently added this amazing rule, but until then, any time any game spelled it out, it was to stick two fingers up to 40k with its "NO PREMEASURING" rules and the insane fans who throw fits over that.
That that one got away from me in the rule book. I like it. Standardized premeasuring is the progressive way of the future for war games.

In the grim dark future there is only premeasuring.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

It occurs to me no one would know I was talking about Relic Knights.

Since I made the minor oversight of never mentioning the official name or linking to anything.

For some reason you can find ALMOST all the official rules, faction cards, and even the damn "esper deck" inexplicably available for free download on their "media" page, because the page where all the desktop backgrounds and free forum avatars are at is where you expect that stuff.

So you can download it all and see for yourself AT THE RELIC KNIGHT'S MEDIA PAGE.

It's worth noting, that assuming you printed the esper deck in some form (I'd recommend tiny tiny cards, get them all on one page and cut it up) that you have ALMOST everything you need to play there (other than minis and 500 special tokens, but whatever).

BUT what it lacks are the "General Actions" available to "Esper Initiates" and "Esper Masters", which is to say, all available leader "Relic Knight" and "Questing Knight" characters. I had to dig around the interwebs to even find a fan made marginally inaccurate cheat sheet with those on it. To be honest I suspect the game would have been better off just not having those stupid things but as is it's like anywhere up to 6 or 10 extra actions your leader is likely to have available, maybe some heals, AoE buffs/debuffs and the odd damaging "spell".

It's a marginally amazing oversight considering every other damn thing you need to play/trial/learn the game is on there.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Sat Jun 21, 2014 3:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Koumei »

Yeah, it probably is an actual oversight. They seem to want to go with the "You can download stuff and print it out and enjoy whatever quality you can manage if you want to go cheap, you don't need to pay us if you want to play it on Vassal, or if you give us money you get pretty minis, and also all the cards and stuff are printed nicely" route. So it seems odd that one thing is missing.

Then again, it'd be easy to overlook, what with all the card decks and everything.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Is there a good battle report with clear images showing positioning from turn to turn available to look at?
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Post by Koumei »

Not yet that I'm aware of.

So, I received the notice, my stuff is shipping, and it should arrive on Friday. So soon I will have a mountain of plastic to assemble into tits.

I can't even remember what the second faction I ordered is, I just know I ordered Cerci Speed Circuit. Probably the Magical High School, in which case I'll need to see if I can alter the ass-pinching mini to not be like that.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Is there much fluff or will the manner in which the Black Diamond lost their pants technology remain a mystery?
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Post by Koumei »

From the free stuff, there isn't *much* fluff, but I imagine the proper rulebook will have a decent amount. There's also a mango (it might just be a one-off introductory piece, mind you).

I doubt there's anything specifically explaining why nobody has developed long trousers. If people want to speculate as to whether the Noh Empire sacrificed them for demonic power, or they block vital energy absorption that has to occur through the ass cheeks or whatever, then they can just do that.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Image

everyone in the Black Diamond starter set wears pants.
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Post by DSMatticus »

Koumei wrote:So soon I will have a mountain of plastic to assemble into tits.
Also how pornstars are made.
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Post by Whipstitch »

First off, it was a joke, second I was just looking at media page stuff like this.
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Post by Prak »

OgreBattle wrote:Image

everyone in the Black Diamond starter set wears pants.
I'm curious, and possibly a bit terrified, as to where the tank and scaly pikachu are keeping their pants.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
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Post by Zaranthan »

Prak_Anima wrote:I'm curious, and possibly a bit terrified, as to where the tank and scaly pikachu are keeping their pants.
Zerglings don't have to wear pants according to the Comics Code, and tanks ARE pants.
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Post by Longes »

The title is "Booby Knight" and I see none of that on the photo. I'm disappoint.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Longes wrote:The title is "Booby Knight" and I see none of that on the photo. I'm disappoint.
The Booby Knight comes in a separate box as the super unit of your faction I believe.

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Post by Prak »

Booby Knight should be a 10th level Tome Knight faction.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
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Post by Koumei »

Prak_Anima wrote:Booby Knight should be a 10th level Tome Knight faction.
Well in Disgaeagame they can be Mystic/Rune/Space Knights, which are the sword-casters from Disgaea that are known for their massive boobs. I think that does well enough.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Koumei wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:Booby Knight should be a 10th level Tome Knight faction.
Well in Disgaeagame they can be Mystic/Rune/Space Knights, which are the sword-casters from Disgaea that are known for their massive boobs. I think that does well enough.
I feel like you've already written a Booby Knight, Titty Ninja, and Booty Pirate PrC at some point already

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Koumei
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Post by Koumei »

In other news, my stuff arrived early. This being Australia (and indeed, Fedex), that was quite a surprise.

So yeah, I have Doctrine (magical high school):
*6 students
*2 librarian golems
*red riding hood + big bad wolf
*crazy catgirl on mecha
*the ass-pinch
Cerci Speed Circuit:
*Mech-riding girl + rabbit
*6 hoverbike riders
*1 hoverbike special + dog
*1 sniper
*2 pacer robots
Special:
*Candy (on mecha) + Cola
*Ameliel (dark angel)
*Cordelia Clean
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Post by Koumei »

So let's discuss the rulebook. Rather, I'm going to talk about the rulebook. It's 270 odd pages, in big glossy hardback format, like you'd expect any base rulebook to be. Also, it's full colour, all the way through, so it's a pretty high quality product.

The rule section is actually pretty small. Breaking it down, this is what you get:
Page 3: Contents
Page 4: Welcome to the NHKRelic Knights
Page 5: Foreward
Pages 6-23: Calamity Comes - this is a piece of fiction. Yeah, that's a hefty bit of "short story" there.
Page 24-61: The Game
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That was obligatory.

Yes, that's the rules section. Complete with pictures to help explain things, as well as random bits of cheesecake.

62-245: setting information from an in-character perspective, with each faction having one of their own there to talk to you about stuff. Also has little sidebar short stories. Also shows the cards for each faction in case you lose them, and has other pieces of art of course.

After this, it's a showcase of painted minis, a couple of pages on how to paint them (some generally good advice there, honestly GW should really point out some of these tips. I can't tell if they're referencing the THIN YOUR PAINTS meme, but they do remind you to do so with every single step), then quick-reference stuff for traits, general actions, special abilities, order of operations and so on.

Note the bit in the middle where over a hundred pages are the in-setting factions telling you about the world. I'm pretty happy with that. No word on what happened to pants technology though. Soft drink is a big thing in the world, though, and I guess the calories go straight to the tits. I am okay with this.
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Post by Prak »

That actually sounds like a good set up for the book. ~37 pages for rules with pictures, both necessary and gratuitous is amazing. 180+ pages of just setting is very cool. Even if I'd never read it start to finish.

Perhaps tits and pants are a bit like an uneven matter/antimatter deal. Too much tit caused the loss of pants technology, and Black Diamond jealously guards the secret.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

Thin your paints is a meme now? About damn time. I'm springboard in that into a divergent mini rant.

Mini painting techniques and culture was such a bunch of cap when I was last involved in the scene. Locally the focus on shifty extra thick endless layers of unthined wannabe blending was god dawned insane. And I blame a slavish authoritarian worship of GW culture withits dated crappy painting advice and the sheer insulation of the mini paid ting sub culture from any influence in traditional artistic technique. Also GW profited from everyone covering their mini in 2 inches of paint, running out of said paint and essentially destroying the mini short of major paint stripping rehab.

I tried thinners early on because fuck it the advice is out there if you dig, and I had some minor art training background that told me it was a good idea. And after 1 minute of experimenting g never went back. Having a glass of metho and a glass of water is more important than even having all the primary colors for me.

And the results were excellent despite mediocre technical skills and shakey hands I produced some of the best and most popular model paint jobs in the local area. The sheer amount of detail just from NOT burying a mini under unthined paint before even finishing base coat was excellent, the improved washes, the quick drying, the improved fine work, the ability to control drying rates with water and metho mixes, and fuck the crude and obvious blending techniques of thick paint fans because the finer drier blending and improved tone of fine thinned washes was just plain better than multiple layers of so called blending or tone thick enough to count like a bunch of stairs.

Oh yeah and the thinner helped with paint mixing on the pallet (which i always did and is awesome) for custom colors which wouldn't you know GW and the local mini painting scene frowned on because... fuck you buy all the colors you can't mix god damn paints that's crazy talk.

But could I convince anyone to just use some cheap god damn metho thinner? Nope. I had minis in painting contests draw the bulk of attention and have the judges flat out announce that they liked mine more, but the thick paint guy won for using" traditional techniques". Oh and by the way one of the dumb ass judging criteria was to count the god damn visible layers of paint in the tone and more equalled better, and too bad if thinned paint created smoother blending without visible layering because visible layering was a win condition.

If there is finally a meme in Internet model painting circles to use some god damn thinner then ABOUT GOD DAMN TIME.

Yes I typed this on a touch screen tablet with phone style censoring auto correct so that explains the odd emphasis on cap shifty dawn.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Thu Aug 21, 2014 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Koumei »

It was a /tg/ thing some time ago. Any time anybody showed a photo of their minis (and to be fair, thanks to camera phones, the resolution was always a billion pixels per square inch, so you see every fuckup), everyone else would scream THIN YOUR PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINTS!

It became the only piece of advice ever given.
"I'd like to use a brand of paint that isn't overpriced shit from GW. What would you suggest?"
"I'd suggest you THIN YOUR PAINTS"
"How do I make non-metallic metals?"
"THIN YOUR PAINTS?"

And so on.

Anyway, this guide explains "paint upwards from the recesses/shadowed areas towards the areas hit by light", "use short bursts with the spraycan, don't try to get it all in one long spray that covers it in built-up particles", and "We use Vallejo paints ((note: this brand is used by a lot of people who paint minis and models, it's a reliable brand you can get even in Australia)) rather than producing our own range, but you can use anything you're comfortable with".
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Post by PhoneLobster »

I like Vallejo paints and disapprove of spray base coats entirely. The correct solution to base coats in my opinion IS in fact "thin your paints".
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