Surface Action Opening Salvo, Part 3

Welcome back! Our Opening Salvo previews for Surface Action, the sixth set for the Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures game, continue this week with a look at two light cruisers: HMS Sheffield and Giovanni Delle Banda Nere. Surface Action releases on 25 October 2011.   

HMS Sheffield

A member of the famous Southampton (or “Town”) class of light cruisers, HMS Sheffield was a well-armed, well-protected warship with good speed and excellent endurance. She and her sisters represented an important change in British cruiser design, moving away from the undergunned Leander and Arethusa class designs toward a heavier, more capable ship equivalent to the latest American and Japanese cruisers. With twelve 6-inch guns and a 4.5”

Surface Action Opening Salvo, Part 2

Welcome back! This week we’ll continue our Opening Salvo previews for Surface Action, the sixth set for the Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures game. Surface Action releases on 25 October 2011, and consists of 40 models. Last week we took a look at the carriers HMS Eagle and Taiho; this time around, we’ll debut two unit types never before seen in War at Sea, a minesweeper and a landing ship tank (or LST).

LST

The LST, or Landing Ship Tank, is one representative of a class of amphibious assault ships deployed in great numbers by the United States and Britain during the war. Based on a shallow-water tanker originally designed for service in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, the LST was designed to beach itself and discharge its cargo of heavy

Hi there! Thanks for stopping by. Up this time: A few more thoughts about my D&D character and character-building strategies, the resolution of a War at Sea mystery, and a brief thought on the unlamented passing of Osama bin Laden.

Building My Next D&D Character

After abandoning any ideas of trying to build Stabby Smurf, I really put on my thinking cap for the next campaign. The players collectively decided to provide ourselves with an important character constraint: Everyone had to have a good Stealth check, and we would play outlaws or outlaw-like characters without getting too dark. I settled on the idea of providing a bit of muscle for a party otherwise full of rogues, and decided to build a melee-focused striker who could still take some punishment. My theme: Bounty Hunter.

V Opening Salvo, Part 1

Welcome to our first Opening Salvo for Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures set V, as in V for victory! Set V is scheduled to release on 7 December 2010, but we’re ready to start showing off some of the models and unit capabilities from the new set. First, we’ll take a look at two new rare models: The British carrier HMS Glorious, and the carrier Kaga of Japan’s Kido Butai.   

And, to get us started... the aircraft carrier Kaga!

Kaga

Kaga and her half-sister Akagi were the children of the Washington Treaty of 1922. Both were laid down as battleships, and converted to aircraft carriers when the treaty placed a moratorium on new battleship construction. Her battleship origins showed in her large hull, thick armor, and unusually heavy battery of 8” guns. Although

Hail and well-met!

Fall is here! The air's getting cold, the leaves are starting to turn (they're not all evergreens out here), and there's football on the weekends and playoff baseball to watch. All good stuff! I love this time of year. For this entry, I'm going to take a look at some War at Sea news, some philosophy on character roles, and a little digression into Roy Halladay's historic no-hitter yesterday.

First things first: You’ll see my name in a couple of upcoming Dragon articles in October and November. I’ve recently written a couple of Design & Development pieces for our new Gamma World game, plus an article that takes a long look at paladin mounts and another one proposing a variant combat sequence that makes it easier for parties to run away or open negotiations in the middle

Good morning! I’ve resolved to stop apologizing for long delays in my blog posts; clearly this is a once-every-coupla-three-weeks sort of a thing for me, at least as my schedule stands these days. I’m currently dealing with pieces of five different products in various stages of the pipeline, and they’re all far enough out that I can’t really say too much about them. So let me talk about a couple of projects that I worked on many months ago but are out or close to coming out: Dark Sun and Condition Zebra.

The Eladrin of Athas

A few months back I talked about finding a place for the dragonborn in Dark Sun. This time around, I thought I’d take a look at another core 4e race, the eladrin. Now, some of you Dark Sun purists might be inclined to say “High elves don’t have any place

Greetings! I just wrapped up work on a 2011 Gamma World expansion, and now it’s on to the Next Big Thing for me… a project so secret I’ll have to shoot myself for typing these words.

Here’s what’s going on these days in my little corner of the multiverse.

Avenger’s Out

Those of you folks waiting for the newest installation of Blades of the Moonsea, your wait is over! My latest novel Avenger hit the bookstores earlier this month. It picks up where Corsair left off, with Geran and his family in exile and Geran’s old nemesis Rhovann firmly in control of Hulburg. Those of you who have been reading my Forgotten Realms stuff for a while now will find a fun easter egg in the story: the protagonist from The Bladesinger’s Lesson, my long short story or short novella in Realms of

Welcome!

I’ve been busy with a number of short projects so far this year, which makes it hard to find the time to keep the blog up to date. Since January 1st, I’ve designed the maps for the adventure in a Gamma World expansion, knocked out the design work for half the Gamma World booster cards, gone to DDXP, and tackled the unit design for the fifth War at Sea set (which included a couple of tricky new unit types we haven’t seen before, like a hybrid carrier and a seaplane tender). The good news is that I think I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not a train!

War at Sea Spoilers!

Last time I promised to talk about War at Sea some, so I’ll get to it. Let me start with a belated Valentine’s Day present for our beloved customers: A couple of Condition

Season’s greetings, everybody! No Dark Sun this time around; as promised, I’m going to spill the beans on a couple of units appearing in War at Sea set 4, otherwise known as Condition Zebra. My apologies if switching between D&D and A&A leaves you a bit confused!

Before I get to the reveals, I want to touch on something I’ve seen under discussion on the boards regarding our upcoming Revised Starter Set. The eight units included in the new starter will NOT appear in a subsequent expansion; they’re only going to be in the starter. We may do sister ships to some of these units eventually (in fact, it’s hard to imagine that we’d let a set go by without the obligatory Fletcher-class destroyer; only 172 to go!) but these specific units won’t appear again. The eight fixed units is