Heartbreaker Next, plus blog blogging

I've gotten into D&D 5th Edition lately, aka "D&D Next," and since I find it hard to encounter a new system without messing with it, I've been doing a lot of homebrewing. So today's Heartbreaker breaks the thread of recent installments, as I'll instead show off some of what I've been doing.

But first! Those of you with blogs know of the carbuncular irritation that is referral spam. I thought it had largely subsided here at my humble micro-acre of the web, but like Hydra, or fever blisters, it always seems to come back. It appears that the only way I can filter it out is installing Google Analytics. I kind of hate to do this, since I believe it means installing cookies on visitors' computers. Rest assured if I do go down this path, I'm not trying to spy on you or steal your data. I'm just trying to make blogging a little less annoying for myself, and possibly do my part to put a stop to these guys. If you have concerns, do let me know.

Also! I may spin the Heartbreaker stuff off to a different blog in the near future. I know I said I'd keep everything in house, but if I'm going to do more homebrew stuff, I'd kind of like for it to have its own space on the web. I'll link to new Heartbreaker posts at this space if I start a new blog.

For now, new Heartbreaker stuff below the fold. But first, how about some news? A few upcoming sets have caught my attention. New producer "Linear-A," which seems to be the crew from "Linear-B" breaking off their relationship with Strelets, have an upcoming set, "Folk of Judea," with lots of great looking civilian figures. They've also announced a set of "Silk Road" figures.

Strelets has another neat civilian set in the pipeline, "Norman Army Camp." Lots of interesting poses to look forward to.

Brief RPG design stuff below the fold!

Heartbreaker: Attack!

It's another installment of Heartbreaker, my amateur RPG design sub-blog here at CFM. Remember, 1/72 fantasy news first, then under-qualified RPG-design musings below the fold.

Today's news is again from the 1/72 miniatures wall at VK.com. We've been following upcoming sets from Alliance, Red Box's fantasy line and one of two manufacturers of plastic 1/72 scale fantasy figures. Here's a short but dense blurb with some more news, run through Google Translate:

"The promise of fantasy sets - it Amazons, Barbarians, a la Conan, trolls (4 sets) and Balrogs and orc Catapult."

We also get a new shot of the aforementioned trolls:

Good stuff! We already knew about the new Amazon, barbarian, and troll sets, but the "Balrogs" and orc catapult are news to me. One imagines the Balrogs as larger demon figures, like from the Lord of the Rings movies that Alliance is clearly borrowing from, but I suppose they could also include smaller human-sized devils. The catapult will also be interesting. I'm looking forward to more pics!

Now the RPG-design stuff. Just click the "Read more" link below.

Heartbreaker: rethinking the critical hit (plus new Alliance minis!)

Time for more of Heartbreaker, my sub-blog about my purely amateur interest in d20 fantasy design. Again, I'll start with a quick news blast for the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturists here who don't care about RPGs, then I'll continue with the meat below the fold.

Via VK.com's 1/72 group, here are some intriguing pics from Alliance, one of the two big 1/72 fantasy hobby miniature lines out there.

     

The description the Alliance guys give for these is interesting. When they were making their Amazons sets, they were thinking of whom the Amazons might fight and came up with the figures on the left. They describe them as Conan-esque (the Russian word for barbarian transliterates as "varvar," by the way), though they look a little like Chaos warriors to me. The figure on the right looks more like how I wished Alliances Amazons looked—less cheesecake, more Joan of Arc. Not many details on when or how these might show up, but they are very interesting.

Now to the RPG stuff. Just click the "Read More" link below the "You Might Also Like" stuff.

Introducing Heartbreaker! RPG-design sub-blogging here at CFM!

A while ago I mentioned/threatened my interest in blogging about my purely amateur interest in role-playing game design here at Cheap Fantasy Minis, which I am calling "Heartbreaker" for reasons explained below. When I asked you guys, those who responded mostly said they'd be interested, largely preferring that I keep all my blogging here at this familiar blog. Still, there were plenty of responders who admitted to being utterly uninterested in such blogging, so being the solicitous fellow I am, I had to come up with a way to please all camps.

So my solution is to start with a brief item pertinent to cheap fantasy minis, then continue below the fold with the game design stuff. It could be news, or a cool blog post or forum item, or some other such thing. So let's start with the news:

I had thought that Caesar's elf set was more or less defunct, but I'm seeing clear signs of resurrection. Caesar's new store lists them as in stock. So does Taiwanese seller Always Model, which seems to have a close relationship with their fellow patriates at Caesar Miniatures. Other retailers list the set as "in stock soon." Interestingly, the Caesar dwarves are now the set that seems to be harder to find. Still, it's good to see that Caesar is still interested in the older sets of their fantasy line.

Now onto the RPG-design stuff: