Tabletop Games

If there’s a board…

In the first issue…

I know and you…

I remember the before-time,…

Roleplaying games, tabletop war…

Tiny Epic Mechs is the latest game in the Tiny Epic series to be fulfilled from its Kickstarter and head out to retail. If you’re unfamiliar, Gamelyn’s Tiny Epic games pack away into a box about the size of three DVD cases stacked together, yet the modular components often fill a table and offer medium-length, fairly weighty play experiences. Every game in the series is a completely different theme and play style, although — a bit like the Final Fantasy series — there is common DNA throughout many of the titles.

A Grenadier cast from the late 1980s and early 1990s, this lead figure came as part of a group of four ordered from eBay back in 2015 or 2016. I’ve always been a fan of the Grenadier castings from that period and, despite their age, this little group of elves really holds up well alongside modern plastics, white metal, and resin. The moulds were eventually bought by Mirliton, and you can still purchase some of the old figures as new from them.

Every tabletop roleplaying game is a system, composed of mechanics, designed around a certain story that the system wants to emulate. They’re toolboxes. And, as Adam Koebel states in this twitter thread, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the original roleplaying game, is a box full of knives. The mechanics tell you how to fight things and take their stuff in great detail, and everything else is left in broad strokes and not supported by the mechanics. 

The seminal roleplaying game of cosmic horrors and plucky investigators has been terrifying and amusing players for years. With the arrival of a new quickstart kit, it seemed prudent to round up a few players at this year’s Lavecon and play it ’till the wheels fell off.