ASOIAF: A Song Of Ice And Fire Intro

This is my new jam.

A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures game is one of the best table-top games that I've played in a long time.  No, seriously, and I don't say this often and without good reason.  At first, this game completely flew under my radar because I was wrapped up in other games.  Recently, I have been gearing up by re-watching all the seasons of Game of Thrones to prep myself for the final season.  One night, I remembered something:  Game of Thrones actually has a miniatures game!  After a quick jog down memory lane, I remembered that CMON created A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game.

After a few weeks of hard research, reading over the free rules and looking at all the minis available to me, I started getting really interested.  Now, I would say that I'm fairly frugal and really like to do my research before getting into a game and I took my damn sweet time with this one.  As a competitive tournament player, I wanted a game that had enough depth to keep me engaged but at the same time, had super clean rules with longevity in both creative design space and strong game balance.  The last thing I wanted to do is throw money at a game that won't play well.  I was never the player who got in the game for the hobby side of things, it's all about the game and the rules.  Besides, the game was designed by a familiar name being Eric M. Lang and while I didn't really know Michael Shinall, any designer who has his own tactics podcast gets a thumbs-up from me.  I am a big fan of designers who play their own game competitively and actively teach the community to be better players.

Honestly, when I first took a look at the game, I was afraid that the game will not have enough options.  I mean, the game came out with Starks vs. Lannisers in the middle of the War of Five Kings but when getting the core set, you pretty much only have these as your first two full-fledged armies.  Now, that's not saying that there's not more available now, but having played games like Warhammer Fantasy and 40K growing up, I'm sure as hell spoiled for choices.  So many factions and armies to choose from I felt like I had near unlimited options when it comes to choosing units out of a codex or army book.  Now, this is completely different when it comes to competitive list building, but the general gist is that players that grew up with GW as an option are definitely spoiled for choices.  Even with Privateer Press games, you knew you had a lot of factions to play if you liked variety because it suited a lot of different playstyles.  This was my biggest worry jumping in the game but the more I studied, the more I realized that what they currently have in the game is more than enough to get started.  In fact, seeing how there are only 2 factions in the game right now, an epic crap ton of design space and a billion other things not released yet, the game can only grow larger with more factions and greater complexity.  That makes a competitive player like me very excited.  They just came out with Night's Watch and Free Folk, and they will definitely shake up the meta and take gameplay to the next level.

I might have gone pretty hard with my first purchase.

To get you guys pumped, let me throw out some highlights that really got me into the game.  I've been playing it pretty religiously, having played around 20 or so games since I got the game like 2 weeks ago.  Yes, I've been going that hard.  In fact, I would say one of the biggest draws in the games is that games take about 1 hour or 1.5 depending on the points size and experience of the players.  Each of these talking points below will probably get their own article in due time, but these are the highlights that stand out for me.

Here's what I fucking love about the game:

• I love the fact that the rules are some of the cleanest rules I have ever seen.  It's almost like the game was designed with tournament play in mind in that there are very little questions I had out of the initial rules package.  The game seems like a perfect blend of complexity and speed with tight-wording and streamlined mechanics seen from other minis games.  The rules package itself is very lightweight and comes with all the nitty-gritty you need to get in and start playing.
• Speaking of speed, I just love that the game puts movement trays back on the table and the units are ready to play.  I can get a package from Amazon to actively playing with that unit on the table in 5 minutes.  The minis are hard plastic, has great detail on them, and come with a movement tray for all the units to fit snuggly into.
• The game uses alternate player activations with plenty of play and counterplay (via rules, tactics card, tactics board..etc) that allows for active engagement with the other player in all phases of the game.  I absolutely love games that go back and forth because it not only keeps players focused, but it generally leads to more even games where choices feel more meaningful because you have a chance to respond next activation.  It's not like you're just sitting there watching all your units get shot off the table.
• The rules are light, but the game is very deep:  Activation order matters, the amount of drops you have matter (deployment and activation), the commander you choose matters, the control of the tactics board matters, your tactics cards and the order you play them matters, your list composition matters, the game mode and mission objectives matters, everything matters.  Part of what makes a good game great is how much the player influences the outcome of the game.  Looking back at all the games played so far, I can zero in on particular situations where if I did something different, I would have won.  This is important for me as a competitive player because less ambiguity means a more direct route to improving.
• The tactics board by itself is a complete mini-game inside the existing game.  This really deserves its own section, but let's just say that NCUs count as activations and how you interact with the tactics board influences the units on the board, the tactics cards in your hand, and how you play the game as a whole.  It's absolutely awesome how it's so tightly integrated into the game mechanics while still making a ton of sense from a flavor and fluff perspective.  When Cersei Lannister is playing her games at court, your units really feel that on the battlefield.
• There is so growth potential in the game that I can't fully wrap my head around it right now.  Right now, we have Lannisters, Starks, Neutral (with House Bolton units!), Free Folk, and Night's Watch.  There's a good amount of unit variety already but that's without most of the other major Houses in there as well.  Where is Baratheon, Tyrell or Greyjoys?  What about Daenerys and her dragons?  Can we even fit Dragons in a 40 point game?  Is there going to be an epic game format or the possibility to ally different houses with another outside of faction + neutral units?  The possibilities are near endless.
• You can take 2 lists into a tournament event as long as they're from the same faction.  This has got me super excited because you essentially have a backup list to play to a specific matchup or game mode to maximize your chances on winning.

More armies to come!

Before getting into the game too much, let me just say that I'm planning a series of articles that go much more in-depth with list building, faction overviews, and competitive play.  There is a lot to talk about for this game and I want to take the time to write my out my journey with you.  I'll probably cover the Stark and Lannister overview next before going more into list construction.  Stay tuned!

Armageddon Dimes By Aaron Michael Ritchey, Book Review

In 2053, Mariposa Hernandez sacrifices everything to get home from the Sino-American War. It's the first of many mistakes. Bored of civilian life, haunted by the war, Mariposa is invited by a long lost friend on a treasure hunt into the wastelands of Denver. Can Mariposa reclaim a fortune in abandoned dimes before the ghosts of her past consume her?

This description comes from the book and it provides a great basis for what the reader can expect.

Armageddon Dimesis a free novella prequel to the Juniper Wars Series.

Setting

The world made it through another war that left scars across the landscape. The Sino-American War took a toll on the people of the United States who fought in Asia. And the land wet through upheavals from the Chinese nuking the Yellowstone Caldera.

The ensuing eruption led to the general area of the Rocky Mountain States being pushed back in time as the geological formation of a permanent electro-magnetic field. The area, now called The Juniper, has no electricity and the inhabitants have embraced their heritage in making The Juniper a modern Wild West.

Along with the loss of modern technology in the area of the Juniper mankind is dealing with the results of the Sterility Epidemic. The war took many lives and many men died early on. Women became the main fighting force until the conclusion of the fighting. Now women outnumber men and in many ways are the dominate gender.

Overall

Armageddon Dimes was a fun read. The story is told from the point of view of Mariposa, and we get a post war tale dealing with the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) she is suffering from. For those who have dealt with PTSD, personally or through someone they know, the description of the issues deal with the issues well without getting too deep.

The backstory of Mariposa's experiences are well crafted into the story to provide foreshadowing and a completeness to the story. Even recognizing what is probably in store, there is a desire to see how it unfolds.

The setting of Armageddon Dimes is a combination of elements that give it an original twist. The mythical old west, post-apocalypse, and steampunk combines to present a location clearly ripe for plucking stories out of. The setup and setting is intriguing. I already have the first book of the Juniper Wars Series, Dandelion Iron, in my queue for review and I am looking forward to when it makes the top of the stack.

I give Armegeddon Dimes 5 out of 5.

The Author (from the book)

Aaron Michael Ritchey is the author of The Never Prayer, Long Live the Suicide King, and Elizabeth's Midnight. In 2016, the first book in the epic Juniper Wars Series, Dandelion Iron, will be published by Kevin J. Anderson's WordFire Press. Aaron was born on a cold and snowy September day in Denver, Colorado. While he's lived ad traveled all over the world, he's a child of the American West—sagebrush makes him homesick. He lives in Colorado with his cactus flower of a wife and two stormy daughters.

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

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Grammalepsy: Essays On Digital Language Art - Fox eBook

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Yearning For More Blog Posts

Gosh that tumbleweed is clogging up the blog!

I logged into github today and saw this highly active project in my feed called The Yearning. 

A hybrid singleplayer / multiplayer game about spider drones and the meaning of life.

If that doesn't mean too much to you (it didn't to me!) then fortunately you can check out this gif of some gameplay. 

Lots of other projects continue on strongly. Then there's others that need a bit of TLC. Somebody is having a bit of a go with reviving Open City, which could hopefully lead to making it a bigger project with more contributors later down the line. Then there's somebody reviving Lips of Suna. That's the great thing about open source - there's always a chance somebody is interested enough to take on the mantle should the original developer move on to other things.

This post was retrieved from freegamer.blogspot.com.

100 Item Challenge (Tradecraft)

I recently read the ebook Smarter Inventory Drives Sales. It was a standard inventory approach with a lot of complex terminology to describe simple things, but one thing stood out. Inventory accuracy reality and perception were vastly different. The article quoted an Auburn University study in which back in 2005, before many retailers had an online presence, most thought their inventory accuracy was far higher than it actually was:

Nearly all retailers truly believed that they were at 95% plus Inventory Accuracy, and why wouldn't they? Online customer visibility was in its infancy and the term omnichannel was barely invented.

Why mention online sales? It's a painful process to sell online only to give back money because a product doesn't exist on the shelf. Stores upped their inventory game tremendously when they began selling online. My store is in that situation a little bit with our Magic singles, Our singles inventory is weak, because we have weak tools and weak processes. The metrics associated with failure are hard. We regularly bribe customers when our inventory is off. Although we're at 99.4% positive feedback, we were told we couldn't sell internationally because the standard is 99.5%. Rather than the soft metrics of back peddling with a brick and mortar customer, when you're out online, it results in bad feedback and less sales in a more direct manner.

For those of us, like me, who don't do significant online sales, we're back in that pre 2005 study territory, thinking we have a high degree of accuracy (95%+) when in reality, the study finds, accuracy is much lower:

Accuracy is somewhere in the 65-75% range. A few still cling to the decade old belief that they have 85% or higher exact match Inventory Accuracy.

This means the value of a retail store should be considered lower by at least a third. If you were to buy a store or put yours up for sale, the assumption of inventory value would immediately start at 65% of whatever you think is there. I think adding even a modest online component may increase the value of the business, if for no other reason than it denotes a higher inventory accuracy of around a third. This assumes this is all understood by a buyer or broker. In any case, if I were buying a business, I would assume 35% of the stores stated inventory is smoke and mirrors.

Rather than claim high accuracy, test this yourself. Do an actual inventory with no excuses. Don't do a regular inventory, do a random check. There are a lot of excuses when you get down to business on why things are wrong. You may have known they were wrong in the back of your mind, like many things in a store that are out of place. It's just a database after all, why sweat accuracy? But remember, you pay taxes based on the accuracy of that data and customer satisfaction is tied to product availability.

Inventory 100 random items. Do a spot inventory. The way I did this was dumping my inventory from my POS to an Excel spreadsheet. In the column next to each item, generate a random number and copy that cell down through your entire inventory. This is the only way to really check, as a standard inventory process is too subjective. Here's an article on how to generate that random number. Now sort your inventory based on the random number column and inventory the first 100 items.

What did I get? Well, how do we measure? If we measure missing items, it's one number. If we measure incorrect entries, it's another. Both were pretty close for me at 85%. I was certainly in the camp claiming 95%+ accuracy before doing this. I already had what I thought was a robust inventory process in place, but I reiterated the need to get this work done to managers and staff and put a monthly 100 random item check reminder on my personal calendar.

This measurement of progress should help improve performance. Doing a regular inventory is clearly not good enough. Give it a try and let us know what you found. There's no shame in admitting you have a problem if you're going to fix it.