Firefly Adventures - Heroes 02

Last month I finished painting the figures from the two expansion sets for Firefly Adventures by Gale Force Nine, Respectable Folk and Wanted Fugitives. These two sets include the four passengers of the Serenity captained by Mal Reynolds. Respectable Folk contains Inara Serra and Derrial Book, whilst Wanted Fugitives contains siblings River and Simon Tam. Once again, the figures come in two sculpts for each character - Casual and Heroic.

A member in good standing of the Companion's Guild, Inara Serra brings a level of refinement to any system, city or room she enters. Out on the fringes of the 'Verse. Companions are the stuff of stories and fantasies. Inara is uniquely capable of negotiating with friend or enemy. If your crew needs to talk their way out of a situation, Inara is the person most likely to succeed.

With a love for spaceships with character, Shepherd Derrial Book is travelling in search of his place in the 'Verse. While not all of Serenity's crew welcomes the message of the Good Book, his past connections with the Alliance can pull some useful strings. A man of God can provide a certain amount of cover in heroic situations. Even violent thugs pause before doing harm to those in the company of a preacher.

Simon Tam's skill as a doctor is only matched by his awkwardness outside the medical bay. Given how common bullets and blood seem to be, putting up with him is worth it to have a real doctor around to patch the Crew back up. Simon's ability to heal two Wounds with one Action can be crucial in tough jobs. River is not able to Act Casual without Simon's trusted presence. If you need River to keep calm and quiet, you'll need to have Simon nearby.

Calling River Tam a prodigy is a vast understatement. Taken by the Alliance at a young age, military scientists subjected River to experiments that enhanced her prodigious abilities and shattered her grip on reality. Now, only her connection with her brother, Simon, and the rest of the Crew anchors her enough to not destroy everything around her.
For the most part these figures are nicely sculpted and posed. What does let them down is their facial detail, which is very soft. In the case of River, it is virtually non-existent. These four figures complete the crew of the Serenity, so are useful additions to the game.
The two boxed sets each contains 2 Casual plastic figures, 2 Heroic plastic figures, 1 building (the bottom of the box), 11 tokens, 10 equipment cards, 2 Crew character cards, 2 Downed cards and 3 Job Briefings (scenarios). I bought my two boxed sets from Amazon UK for £15.00 each.

Vampifans Views 113 - Monthly Musings 83

Greetings, one and all, to another of my Monthly Musings. As usual, I'm starting with another Sanjulian painting of Vampirella, whose work I have been featuring all year. This is a beautiful piece of artwork that I am most impressed with.

November has been a very good month for me. In my past few posts, I have been reviewing the Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats game. The game is very good and I plan on playing many more games of it. Having bought the two Crew expansions sets, they will improve it immeasurably. Extra Crew and new Jobs greatly add to the re-playability of the game, which is no bad thing.

I have finished my Zomtober and Zomvember challenges for this year. Concentrating on making a start on my collection of The Walking Dead figures certainly revived my enthusiasm for the game. The biggest problem I have with these monthly painting challenges is that they are only meant to last one month and then a new one comes along. For me, as soon as Zomtober ended I wanted to carry on painting more of my The Walking Dead figures, which is what I did. Having completed all of the wave 1 figures, I have now turned my attention to the scenery items. I'm working on the 3D barricades and supplies. I have ordered a few scenery sets from Mantic Games for the game as well as the Here's Negan spin-off game. One of the scenery items I ordered was Hershel's barn, which will fit in very well in Wild West games as well as contemporary games.

Currently on my painting table are a mix of sci-fi figures. I'm painting figures from Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet and UFO TV series (both produced by Crooked Dice Games) as I decided it was long overdue that I plug a few holes in my collections of them. In addition, I am also painting the newest figures from the Strontium Dogs skirmish game by Warlord Games. I have also been painting more 3D scenery items that my brother has printed out for me to use in a variety of games.

For my WOIN games, I have rebased and repainted some more of my old sci-fi figures to use in my The Ace of Spades Campaign. I have also made a start on creating characters from the Judge Dredd and Worlds of 2000 AD book. As you may well be aware, I have a huge collection of Judge Dredd themed figures, so I have loads to create character stats for. Fortunately, character creation is something I very much enjoy doing so it is no great hardship - it's just very time-consuming.
Thanks for reading and all the best to you.

Firefly Adventures - a Review

As promised, here is my review of the Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats board-game with 28mm scale miniatures produced by Gale Force Nine.

I'll start with a look at the contents of the game. At the left are the assorted counters used in the game. Made of thick card, I keep them stored in a small plastic container box.
The bottom of the box contains ten small boxes, which also double as buildings to use in the game. This is a great idea and even the big box can be used as a large building. The six game boards are stored under the ten small boxes. The large rectangular box at the top contains the Hero stat cards and a wad of paper money in various denominations that is used as rewards for Jobs completed, purchasing equipment and perhaps bribing opponents. In the four square boxes, I have placed the 5 Cowboys, 5 Thugs, 5 Casual Crew and 5 Heroic Crew. In the five small rectangular boxes at the right are from top to bottom, the 30 Tech Challenge cards, 30 Negotiation Challenge cards, 40 Equipment cards, 10 Goon stat cards and the 6 dice. The dice have a Firefly symbol in place of the 6. For each Firefly rolled, you may roll an additional bonus die and add it to your results. Each Firefly rolled adds 6 to the Test result. The opposite sides of the dice have a Disgruntled Icon instead of a 1. If you roll more Disgruntled faces than Heroic dice things have gone awry and you fail the Test. Disgruntled Faces never add to the dices' total.
To the right of the big box are the four Jobs sheets, which detail the missions, any special rules and what rewards apply.

In these next photos I have set everything up for the start of a mission. The six game boards are double-sided. Note that I have set them and the buildings up for an imaginary Job, just to show you all of the components. The smaller buildings are numbered from 1 to 10. Doors to the buildings may be locked or unlocked. If locked, they will require some form of a Challenge Test to unlock. The Goons will ignore the Heroes as long as the Crew act Casual. Once a Crew acts Heroically, any Goon who has line of sight to him or her will be Alerted and react accordingly. Thugs will Brawl if they can, otherwise they'll move to the Hero. Cowboys will Shoot if the Hero is within 6 squares of him, otherwise he will move closer. If a Cowboy is adjacent to a Hero, he will Brawl. If a Hero defeats a Goon, the Goon figure is replaced with a dead body counter. Dead bodies will also alert Goons if they are seen. However, the Heroes can move dead bodies to place them out of sight. Although it takes extra time to move a body, it is a useful tactic.

The Crew start with five items of Equipment, which are drawn randomly. Any Hero may hold up to four items of Equipment. If playing a campaign, Equipment may be carried over from Job to Job, thus improving your chances of success. Extra items of Equipment can sometimes be found during the course of a Job.

Crew have their Wounds listed on their Heroic side (between 3 and 5). Once wounded, a Character must act Heroic until they are fully healed. You can't casually bleed all over the place! When a Crew is reduced to 0 Health, that Character has been Downed. Place a Downed status card over their Heroic Actions. The Downed cards are shown in the bottom left of the above photo. Some Characters have the ability to heal Wounds. To heal a Wound, the healer must be standing next to the Wounded Character. A Wounded Character may be healed multiple times in a turn. Healing counts as Heroic if in sight of a Goon. A Downed Crew Member must be healed before they can take Actions other than waiting or healing themselves.

In this photo, I have set the Crew next to or on their M.U.L.E. transport vehicle. This being the start of the game, they are all acting Casual. On their turn, a Character may take two of the Actions listed on their Character card. This may be the same action both times. Actions listed on Equipment cards count towards a Character's two Actions on their turn. Goons always take two Actions. At the end of each Crew's turn, check to see if any Goons have been Alerted, either because they took Wounds or because they can now see a Heroic Crew.

Probably the most important component of the game is the Timeline Tracker, which runs around the edges of the board. It is used to track how much time the Crew has to complete a Job. Different Actions take different amounts of time. Each character on the map has their own Time Marker, which tracks how much time they have spent so far. As the Crew moves, shoots and attempts Challenges, they'll advance their Time Marker up the Timeline. I have placed the Time Markers for the Crew on the first five segments of the Timeline Tracker. Once their turn is over, the Character at the back of the Timeline takes their turn. So in this case, Wash will act first. Sometimes a Character's Time Marker will end up on top of another Character's. In this case, the marker which is on top is considered to be behind the markers below it.
Conclusion
I played this game for the first time on my birthday and I absolutely loved it. I chose a simple Job - Questionable Objectives - which I successfully completed. For almost the whole game, the Crew acted Casual. When they did act Heroic, I made sure that no Goons could see them, apart from in one instance, when a Thug had line of sight to Kaylee, who was acting Heroically. Before he could move, Zoe shot him dead. I'd have preferred to have played the game without killing any Goons but it was necessary to take out that particular Thug. The objective my crew had to find turned out to be a safe, which they had to move off the board. This they did easily since they'd moved all of the closest Goons out of sight of them, giving them a clear run off the board.
There is much to admire about this game. The figures are nicely sculpted, despite their facial details being a tad soft. The idea of having Casual and Heroic Crew is an excellent one. I like that the boxes for holding the components also double as the buildings. Sure, they don't have roofs, but that doesn't bother me. It's what's inside them that is more important. The Timeline Tracker adds a great deal of tension to the game.
I found the game very easy to play. Obviously, I had to frequently reference the rulebook, but that's only to be expected with any game you're playing for the first time. Best of all, I didn't make any mistakes, which pleased me greatly.
My only criticism of the game is that it only comes with four Jobs sheets. I'd have expected more. It does rather limit re-playability, although tactics that work once may not work a second time depending on dice rolls. However, extra Jobs can be downloaded from GF9games.com. If, like me, you buy the two Crew expansion sets, each set contains another three Jobs, which gives you 10 in total if you don't download any. This is much more acceptable. Plus, with extra Crew, you have far greater choice on who to take on your Jobs, giving even more options.
As a massive fan of the TV series and spin-off film, I was expecting great things from this game. It goes without saying that I was not disappointed. Highly recommended, especially if you're a Firefly/Serenity fan. If you do fancy buying it, Amazon UK have it for sale at £33.00. See here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/GaleForce-Nine-GF9FADV1-Firefly-Adventures/dp/1945625619/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543235261&sr=8-1&keywords=firefly+adventures+brigands+%26+browncoats

Firefly Adventures - Goons

It's my birthday today and this afternoon I'll be playing my first game of Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats, which I'm very much looking forward to. In my last post I showed you the Heroes of the game and this time I want to turn my attention to the bad guys, collectively known as the Goons. There are two types of Goons - Cowboys, who are ranged combat specialists, and Thugs, who are melee combat specialists.

The Cowboys are made of brown plastic, so I have stuck with shades of brown for my colour scheme for them. The Cowboys can be played in easy mode or hard mode. In easy mode, they all have identical stats and just 1 Fight and 2 Wounds.

However, in hard mode, shown on the reverse of their stat cards, each one is an individual with unique abilities and variable Wounds. From left to right, they are identified as Duellist, Grizzled Gunman, Roper, Sharpshooter and Tracker. I have to say that I really like these figures and they wouldn't look out of place in a Wild West setting or the Strontium Dogs game or as Cursed Earth bandits in Judge Dredd. I particularly like the Sharpshooter with his incredibly long-barrelled pistol.

Moving on, we have the Thugs. Just like the Cowboys, these can be played in easy mode, where they all have identical stats or in hard mode. These were moulded in grey plastic, so I have given them all dark grey clothing to unify them.

From left to right are the Bodyguard, the Bruiser, the Butcher, the Martial Artist and the Punk. These would make fine scum and villainy in any sci-fi game.

By the way, yesterday I received these two Crew Expansion Sets from Amazon UK, which add the four passenger figures from the Serenity into the mix. As with the five Heroes from the starter boxed set, they come in Casual and Heroic modes. I plan on getting them painted real soon. All is shiny!

Firefly Adventures - Heroes 01

It is my birthday next week on the 24th of November. Now that I have finally gotten the probate sorted out with my mum's will and have received a very tidy sum of money, I splashed out on a few presents for myself. One of those was for Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats, a board-game with 28mm scale miniatures produced by Gale Force Nine, which I bought from Amazon UK. It is a game designed for 1-5 players, so as a solo player, that was a big draw for me. Secondly, I am a huge fan of the TV series and spin-off film.
Firefly Adventures is a co-operative, mission based, skirmish level game where the players need to use their different skills and abilities together to succeed. When you play Firefly Adventures, you'll follow one of the Job Briefings, which determines what your Crew needs to accomplish, how they might succeed and how long they have to work.
Some jobs are easier and faster, some are longer and more involved. What type of Job you want to tackle is up to you. You can work a single Job or play a story of multiple Jobs. In a Story, you'll use the credits you earn from one Job to equip the Crew for the next Job. Each Job will detail how to set up the map for that Job, how long the Timeline should be and how much you'll be paid for completing the Job.
I'll go into more detail into how the game is played in a later post. For this post and my next one, I want to showcase the miniature figures. The game comes with 20 plastic 28mm scale figures, all of which are unique sculpts. You get 10 Heroes split into 5 Casual and 5 Heroic poses and 10 bad guy Goons, split into 5 Cowboys and 5 Thugs. I'll show the Goons in my next post. For now, I want to concentrate on the Heroes.

I guess the Unique Selling Point of the game is that the Heroes come in two flavours - Casual and Heroic. When a Hero is acting Casual he or she can move around the board and take actions without attracting the attention of the Goons. However, once they start acting Heroic, which isn't just limited to combat actions, then the Goons will go on the alert and try to stop them. I like this effect. In some cases it'll pay you to go stealthy and casual but other times you'll need to go gung ho.

The five Heroes of the game are the basic crew of the Serenity. So, from left to right, are Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds, a cunning and capable leader and a skilled fighter. During the Unification War, he fought as a Browncoat.While he is not above petty theft, smuggling or even killing to maintain his free lifestyle, he is generally honest in his dealings with others, fiercely loyal to his crew and closely follows a personal moral code. He is openly antagonistic toward religion as a result of his war experience.
Next up is Jayne Cobb, a mercenary and macho man who often acts dumber than he is. Despite his amoral mercenary persona, he sends a significant portion of his income to his mother, again suggesting that there is more to his character than what he presents to the rest of the crew.
In the centre is Kaywinnet Lee "Kaylee" Frye, the ship's engineer. She is the heart of the ship, a genuine and sweet person who has an intuitive grasp of mechanics, despite having no formal training in engineering.
Second from the right is Hoban "Wash" Washburne, the pilot of the Serenity and devoted husband of Zoe. He is very light-hearted and tends to make amusing comments, despite the severity of any situation.
Finally, is Zoe Alleyne Washburne, who fought alongside Mal in the Unification Wars. She is a capable fighter who keeps calm even in the most dangerous situations.

For the Heroic versions of the Crew, most are armed with their favourite weapons, apart from Kaylee who is a pacifist. Mal is armed with his trusty revolver. Jayne is carrying his favourite assault rifle, whom he has named "Vera." Kaylee is crouching down, making use of her tool box. Wash is firing a pistol in a two-handed grip and Zoe is firing her Sawn-Off shotgun from the hip.

I should point out that I bought this game last month in order to give me plenty of time to paint the miniatures in time for my birthday. The detail on these figures, particularly on the faces, is rather soft. They are made of hard plastic but are not of the same quality as Mantic Games' The Walking Dead figures. On the plus side, each figure is a unique sculpt and it is very easy to tell at a glance which version is Casual and which is Heroic. Note that if you were playing the game with unpainted figures, the Casual versions are made of grey plastic and the Heroic versions are light green plastic.