Many years ago, in a small nowhere town in a tiny nowhere state on the Eastern side of America, a small baby was forcibly ejected from his mothers womb and entered the world. An event that happens millions of times a day the world over and fairly unremarkable. However, every year since then, the people in my life have insisted that the event be commemorated in one fashion or another. So it was that last Sunday, my mad scientist wife and I invited the True Believers and sundry others over for a day of board gaming and...

Many, many moons ago, I was an RPG adherent, drawing detailed topographical maps on graph paper and using Ral Partha miniatures that I'd painted when I was ten years old. I loved the idea of Dungeons and Dragons, although I was only lukewarm on the actual role playing. I think, in my heart of hearts, that my dabbling in Dungeons and Dragons, as well as my theoretical physicist cousins' love of war gaming, is what influenced my lifelong love of miniatures, fantasy war gaming, and really, board games in general. Of all the games that I count...

Wait, before you go any further- go read Alexander Awesome's interview with Bruno Cathala about Cyclades...it ties into my article this week in a way. I bumped off the top spot, but y'all need to go check it out. Second expansion, what?

This is an email interview with Bruno Cathala where he shares his thoughts on Cyclades, the Hades expansion and gives us a few hints about the second expansion for the game. 

I am a nerd. I have always been a nerd. I will always be a nerd. Even when I do un-nerdlike things, I remain, in my secret special place, a nerd. A shocking revelation I am sure. This has many implications but one of them is that you could fill the Grand Canyon with all the fucks I don't give about football. I reserve a special place in the acid bath of hate that masquerades as my heart for arrogant jocks. And what is worse, has been jocks who despite being washed-up continue to believe that the performance of...

What was clearly meant to be a joke now has a pretty audible ring of truth to it. Someone would read a review and respond with something along the lines of, "This game sounds really fun, can't wait to play it on the IOS in a year." And how can we blame that person? We've been spoiled by some really great implementations of some of our favorite games as of late. In a few cases, I've found that I might actually like a few games that I had initially written off (such is the case with...

In Kansas City there’s a restaurant called Swagger, where you can order a sandwich called the “Dead Texan.” This is a burger with bacon, lettuce, mayo, all of the usual suspects. But wait, there’s more! It comes with a fried egg on it, evidently on the assumption that it really needed some more protein. And then, as a sort of practical joke, all of these things are put between not a bun, but two grilled cheese sandwiches. I tell you about this gastronomic monstrosity because this same “more is better” mindset was clearly at work with City of Remnants,...

My Observations; Planet Side 2’s micro transactions and power creep     Sooner or later I will post a positive post here on the FAT, but until then I will continue to be a Grinch in this corner of the internet.   I’ve been playing a lot of Sony Online Entertainments Planet Side 2 lately. It’s a good game, it could be a great game, but it  has some very suspect systems in place. I like the game because of its theatrics....

Well now, I bet that was something of a shock, seeing another Bolt Thrower turning up unexpectedly out of the blue. Much akin to the shock of being skewered by a huge spear from an ancient siege engine, I should imagine. Board Games OK, so here’s the thing. I decide to resurrect this dormant column style because I’m now covering wargames for the lovely people at Shut Up & Sit Down. Not only does this give me an excuse to link to those pieces, but I kind of miss doing the trash culture...

  (While I begin by talking about RPGs, I am later going to generalize to all kinds of tabletop and video games - “sit-down games”.)   When I used to write lots of articles about RPGs for White Dwarf, Dragon, and other magazines three decades ago, I mostly wrote two kinds of things: game rules, and advice about how to play and especially how to referee Dungeons & Dragons successfully.  I rarely wrote settings; and only occasionally in the magazines did I write adventures, which are a combination of rules and setting/story. ...