Buried Gems of the Ameritrash Rehabilitation Movement

SuperflyTNT wrote: Other than that, I think the new D&D Adventure System games beat it out pretty soundly.

If you like dungeon crawls to be a strange hybrid of randomly sadistic Pandemic AI without any cohesive or coherent overlying plotline, then perhaps.

Otherwise, your drunk if you think AI is better than a human DM.

Great bits to use in REAL dungeon crawls though.

Wish I could spew some negativity on some of the games in this thread (Cutthroat Caverns, Lineage II), but I won't.

Michael Barnes wrote: BGG marketplace- $300. Jesus.

It has also not been on eBay for at least 4 years. I know, because eBay will send me an e-mail if it ever is.

Also:

Michael Barnes wrote: These were the kind of people that carried around little notebooks to write down the names of games they want to play and check them off when they do. 35-50 year old, middle aged porkers. A couple of tubby gamer-wives that never got the memo that ladies shouldn't bellow or snort.

Jesus.

DukeofChutney wrote: I've found the stead rewriting of Warhammer over the years rather entertaining. Remember that Games workshop started out as the UK distributor for DnD. GW had been around about a decade before their own in house minis games started to take off.

If you read 1st ed WFRP or early rule books etc, the influence of DnD is really obvious. Moorcock is listed in AD&D appendix N as an influence of Gygax but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a direct source for Priestly et al as well.

I still have original White Dwarf Magazines that were pretty much entirely ads for D&D products. Gamma world articles, new D&D monsters. Its pretty humorous how GW doesn't acknowledge the existence of any other game company nowadays, since they got their start sucking at the teat of other companies.

As for why Warhammer came about, I dont really care. Chainmail was used for the same purpose long before GW were even a business. GW wasnt the first game in town to fantasy battles, they just been at it the longest. And they still suck at it.

Shellhead wrote: Just for a random example, take Asteroid.

What about TRIPLANETARY, that was pretty cool

Michael Barnes wrote: Confession time. Back around 2007, I actually got in contact with the designer because I had some ideas to get the game back in print. I sent him some files with some "modern" rules which I think would have made the game marketable, but I was also adamant that the game be completely, 100% playable in its original form with all of the original rules. I had new cards, just a couple of new rules (mostly to shush crybabies), and a concept for new artwork that would have totally kept the orignal's tone and amazing logo. He loved it, and was actually on board. So I got to talking with Dollar Bill (the "good" AGF partner) and another friend of mine to start talking about doing the paperwork, financing a reprint, getting it published and so forth and it just kind of fell through because Dollar Bill (who was going to bankroll the whole thing) lost interest as young, wealthy people tend to do so it just stalled out and went nowhere.

KICKSTARTER.

Even though they're slightly off the AT-meter, I loved TSR's minigames from the early 80s and still own a couple: Revolt on Antares, They've Invaded Pleasantville, Vampyr, Viking Gods. They're wargames, but have all kinds of flavor/chrome tacked on. Metagaming's stuff, like Chitin, Rivets, Melee, Wizard, etc., are similar but a bit more grognard oriented.

One game I own that most people have never seen but I think is really great is The Hellgame. There's a good dose of strategy involved based on your triumvirate's place on the ranking ladder, but you also have to roll with the completely random and often horrible effects of the Hell deck and/or the appearance of environmental effects like Lilith. I've played it a ton, but I know the company, UGG, is still in business but I think they switched over exclusively to wargames.

SuperflyTNT wrote: KICKSTARTER.

My first thought, as well. Oh, the delicious irony.

SuperflyTNT wrote: A Call To Arms: Star Fleet is one that I may be the only one here who has played. If you have Attack Wing stuff, all you need are those models and a couple scraps of paper to play. And a ruler, and some dice. More or less. Don't let that stop you from trying it though, it really is the best "star trek" licensed game I've ever played.

I've played it. I dunno about best Star Trek licensed game ever (taking place as it does in the SFU, which is an entirely different thing /adjusts glasses), but I feel like it totally delivers on being a fun, quick playing version of Star Fleet Battles, while still retaining the feel of SFB. It's wayyy better than Federation Commander, in my opinion.

Does it really work well w/the Attack Wing ships? I thought they were a lot smaller than the Starline stuff the game's 'made for'.

Jackwraith wrote: Even though they're slightly off the AT-meter, I loved TSR's minigames from the early 80s and still own a couple: Revolt on Antares, They've Invaded Pleasantville, Vampyr, Viking Gods. They're wargames, but have all kinds of flavor/chrome tacked on. Metagaming's stuff, like Chitin, Rivets, Melee, Wizard, etc., are similar but a bit more grognard oriented.

One game I own that most people have never seen but I think is really great is The Hellgame. There's a good dose of strategy involved based on your triumvirate's place on the ranking ladder, but you also have to roll with the completely random and often horrible effects of the Hell deck and/or the appearance of environmental effects like Lilith. I've played it a ton, but I know the company, UGG, is still in business but I think they switched over exclusively to wargames.

I've got two of those TSR mini-games: Vampyr and Viking Gods. I agree that Viking Gods is a wargame, though the dynamic of the game is changed simply by having Hela function like a wandering Sphere of Annihilation. The game simulates Ragnorak, the final battle between the Norse pantheon and their enemies. I haven't played Viking Gods in over 20 years, but I have kept it because I remember some very close and exciting endgames of it. The game does tend to skew a bit in favor of the bad guys, and is only moderately fun unless the endgame is close.

Vampyr also has a hex map (for the first half of the game), but it is definitely not a wargame. Instead, it is a roll-and-move adventure game. For the first half of the game, characters wander around Transylvania searching for Dracula's coffins. The first player to smash three coffins gets a free item, like a crucifix or a pistol. In rough terrain or evil areas, you roll for a possible random encounter, and sometimes instead of finding a coffin, you get a free item or encounter a monster. In the second half of the game, you flip over to play on the other side of the map, in Castle Dracula. Monsters chits are flipped over and randomly assigned to rooms. Some monsters can be killed, others are re-stocked in the castle randomly at midnight. Each player's turn advances the clock an hour, which is important because vampires are tougher at night. A player might be forced to switch sides after accumulating three bites from vampires. Or maybe become a werewolf, if the third bite is from a werewolf. My high school gaming group played the hell out of Vampyr, and I still dust it off for a game once every few years, including just two months ago.

I nearly bought the Hellgame several years ago, but it seemed to be bogged down in excessively chromed rules. I would still love to try it some time.

There is a ton of chrome to The Hellgame, but that's what makes it work for me. I guess it trends more in the Arabian Knights direction, in that the games occasionally turn out to be more of a storytelling venture with a wargame tacked on (the way to win is to control an entire ring of Hell.) There's a lot to keep track of, but I'm fine with that in the same way I am Arkham Horror and this is often much more visceral.

My favorite of those TSR minigames is still Revolt on Antares, mostly because of the occasional cool interactions between the special powers of the house leaders, the various artifacts, and the abilities of some of the more interesting mercenaries. Plus, there's three scenarios in a tiny game, which is pretty cool.

Guess I should have thought of the GW games: Doom of the Eldar, Battle for Armageddon, and Horus Heresy (the original.) Don't know if they qualify as "underrated" but they're often forgotten these days and are all pretty solid. Battle for Armageddon is the best, I think.

This was my very first AT. Alert Force I got as a gift with pocket Ogre for my birthday. I played the hell out of this microgame. It was in the prime of the Red scare days of Reagan, and played the same summer that Red Dawn came out.

Wolverines!

Jackwraith wrote: Guess I should have thought of the GW games: Doom of the Eldar, Battle for Armageddon, and Horus Heresy (the original.) Don't know if they qualify as "underrated" but they're often forgotten these days and are all pretty solid. Battle for Armageddon is the best, I think.

Doom of the Eldar I think is a pretty awesome asymmetrical 2-player game. But I haven't played the others in the series though. But I like the siege feel of DotE, the hidden Tyranid ships and the Eldar player scrambling around their Craftwrold anticipating the attacks. Good, good game.

Doom of the Eldar is great. Horus Heresy I hope to play soon. Haven't gotten Battle for Armageddon yet, but if Horus Heresy is as good as Doom of the Eldar then BfA will be on my "get" list.

I think the best thing about my copy of DotE is that I got it for free! My buddy bought an unpunched copy, we played it a few times, he decided to sell on eBay, USPS put a fist through the front of the box or something, got it shipped back and then gave it to me.

Man, they just don't make 'me like Alert Force anymore...that illustration...

Space Crusade is another that gets discussed once for every 1000 times somebody talks about Descent. Which is a shame, because it's freaking great. Better than Heroquest, better than Mutant Chronicles (by FAR) but in the same vicinity. You outfit a couple of Space Marines (literally putting weapons in their hands) and make with the dakka dakka against a player controlling Orks and so forth. Uses a "blip" system sort of like Space Hulk. Super easy, fast and fun.

There were two expansions, one that adds dreadnaughts and another that brings in the Eldar. I've never seen the Eldar expansion. I have the dreadnaughts though.

It never came out in the US, If it had, it would be as revered as Heroquest.