GeekFest 2017: Tickets and events

GeekFest 2017 tickets are now on sale!
And there's been a great big fancy update about events which will be happening!
Go read the GeekFest blog!

Summer Holiday Program 2017: ANNOUNCE!

The 2017 Summer Holiday Program can now be viewed on the special events page!
Come down to enjoy a game of MTG: Conspiracy, build an all conquering squadron in Peg Flight, uncover ancient mysteries in Skyships of Harran: Wreck of the Herald of Eagles, or hit naughty monsters in Hero Kids!

Learn to play Warmachine at Get Geeked, Wonthaggi!

Tuesday 20th September; 1300-1600

Learn to play Warmachine at Get Geeked Wonthaggi.

Gippsland Gamers in association with Get Geeked in Wonthaggi proudly present the opportunity to learn to play Warmachine, the popular skirmish wargame of steam-driven, magically controlled angry robot mayhem in Get Geeked's luxuriously appointed* gaming room, in Wonthaggi. 149 Graham Street Wonthaggi to be precise.

Come and be initiated into the mysteries of Warmachine and crush various enemies beneath your steam-driven iron-shod heels!

Get Geeked is located at 149 Graham Street Wonthaggi.

Further information, bookings etc. via email.

September Holiday Program is not only online, but MADE OF WIN!

Are you sick of spending your school holidays staring at a wall and drooling quietly? Why not come to Gippsland Gamers and do awesome things which are made of win! Check out the Special Events page for full details.

That's not all - there are secret rumblings about some sort of teaming up between Gippsland Gamers and Get Geeked in Wonthaggi during the holidays. Stay tuned for more!

Pathfinder: COMMENCE!

Star Wars: The Edge of the Empire is winding down.
The campaign has been great fun, but relying on having everyone available has meant that we often can't play. We have also been restricted in the number of players who can take part, meaning that not everyone gets to take part.
This is all about to change.
When EotE finishes, we will start playing Pathfinder.
Pathfinder is a fantasy RPG which evolved out of Dungeons and Dragons. It is robust, well supported, and fairly easy to learn. We'll be playing short adventures which will take up a single session, and we'll be playing as mercenary adventurers, so it doesn't matter if someone can't make it to the session - they're off on a mission somewhere else. We'll also be using published modules, which will cut back on the preparation time and DM fatigue.

Here are a few house rules:

1. We are using only characters, races, spells etc. from the core rule book (Classes are: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard. Races are: Human, Halfling, Half-Orc, Half-Elf, Elf, Gnome, Dwarf.)
2. No one can play a chaotic neutral character.
3. Character stats will be generated by the 'Roll 3D6 six times and assign the results to stats' method.
4. You can use a spreadsheet or online generator to create a character, but you must have a hard copy character sheet at the table.
5. No laptops at the gaming table (unless you are the DM)
6. Please familiarise yourself with the rules and spells specific to your character. If you have spells, it's a good idea to make a spell book which you can refer to for the rules for the spells you can use.

You will be able to find the Pathfinder Rules online here. They are not in the same format as the book, but it's all there and it's easily navigated. If you are having trouble with creating a character, we will have time to work on them at club.

Pirates' Day games at Coal Creek

Pirates day at Coal Creek is on September 18th. Gippsland Gamers will be running Escape from the Ghost Pirates, a fun and easy adventure game for 4-10 year old kids.

The Escape from the Ghost Pirate adventure sees the adults and kids of Rivenshore captured by pirates and thrown into the hold of their ship. Can the kids escape from the hold and rescue everyone from the pirates, and will they discover the pirates' terrible secret?

Dice Chucker V.4 playtesting

Bobby Wallen of the rather annoying to type OvErSoUl GaMeS has just sent me the Dice Chucker V.4 playtest rules. At some point in the future, possibly after the war in the stars has been won, we shall commence to test them vigorously.
There have been some interesting changes, including a new optional abstract combat system and XP for DMs.

Mid year holiday program announced.

The Mid Year holiday program is now finalised. Eagle eye readers may notice that the Learn To Play Warmachine session has been canceled - the new edition of the game is coming out just before the session was scheduled, and there's no garantee that a copy would be available in time. This has been replaced by High Seas Fleet, an exciting naval action floor game using Gippsland Gamer's newly constructed wooden battle fleets!
You can check out full details of the program here.

GeekFest 2017 dates announced.

Yes. Dates. Plural. GeekFest is expanding to a TWO DAY EVENT for 2017, and will be held on the 14th and 15th of January 2017. Mark your calendars! Update your phones! Run screaming through the streets! It's going to be EPIC!

Toppollo Takes Hold

We've been playing Toppollo, a simple wood block balancing game I built in the school wood work shop. The idea of the game is very simple - players take turns to balance a block on the tower. If any blocks fall off, the active player has to take them. The winner is the first player to get rid of all their blocks. Toppollo has proved to be highly addictive and very popular.

Tim cunningly places a piece early in the game.

Rowan is a tricksy man. He places blocks in a tricksy manner.

The tower is starting to look interesting...

Rowan places an almost impossible block... 

IT WORKS! Okay, so a few seconds later most of the tower fell over, but for a few seconds, Rowan was a shiny golden god of Toppollo.

Here are the full rules:

Object of the game: to get rid of all your blocks.
Components:
Toppollo Tower (basically a small plywood table just large enough to hold four blocks - in my case 60mm diameter)
Four sets of blocks, consisting of:
Cube
Oblong
Cylinder
Wedge
Pyramid
Arch
Curve (the bit cut out of the block to make the arch)
Slanted Oblong
Slanted Cylinder
(these will be made from 30X30mm pine and 25ish mm dowel - closest I could get to 30mm dowel)
Setup:
Place the Toppollo Tower on a hard, flat surface such as a table or board within easy reach of the the players.
Each player is given a complete set of blocks.
Starting the game:
Each player takes their cylinder piece and tosses it underarm towards the tower. The player to land their cylinder closest to the center of the tower goes first. Blocks are allowed to touch the tower and land on top of the tower.
Playing the game:
Players take it in turns to place one of their blocks.
Blocks must be placed on the Toppollo Tower or on top of blocks which are already on the tower.
If any blocks fall off the tower, the player whose turn it is takes these blocks into their collection.
The first player to get rid of all their blocks is the winner.

These rules are still being play tested - some tweaks will be happening, and new blocks will also be tested out.
There's also the 'expert mode' variant where the top of the base tower is removed, and blocks are balanced on the cross-shaped support instead...

Pictured: Expert mode. Not pictured: the enormous balls required to PLAY expert mode.

Warmachine Mk.III Slow-grow Journeyman League

Warmachine, the highly popular game of steam-powered magically controlled giant robot enriched skirmish goodness is about to be updated to it's 3rd edition. So is it's companion game of giant angry monster riddled mayhem, Hordes. This is a great time to jump on board and build up an army while learning the new version of the rules.
One way to do this is a Slow-grow league (which is similar to our approach to MTG). In a slow-grow league, players start by buying a Battle Box starter army, and add to it as the weeks go by. In the official Journeyman format the league lasts for six weeks, and armies grow up to 35 points. You score points for painting models and for playing games, all of which go to earning you badges and glory. I was thinking of running things in a modified format, which would last longer to ease the costs involved and make things more manageable for first-time army builders. We'd probably run for a school term plus adjacent holidays, so twelve weeks.
This would be a great way to get some miniatures gaming happening at GG - Warmachine needs a maximum table size of 4'X4' (120cmX120cm), and smaller games can be played on smaller tables. It is one of the more affordable games since armies are fairly small, and the rules system is robust, well written and action packed. We can run some learn-to-paint sessions at GG for those who are interested - Battle Boxes are built around Warjacks and Warbeasts, both of which are large models and a good place to start learning to paint.
Who would be interested in such a league?
Leave comments below if you're up for it.

Still time for Easter Magic!

There's still time to register for the MTG Easter Tournament next week! The cost is $12.50, and covers a three booster 40-card deck draft tournament. Book via email or through Coal Creek on 5655 1811.

2016 Easter Holiday program announced!

Woe is me for my parents lack the foresight to send me
unto Gippsland Gamers' Holiday Program.

This Easter Gippsland Gamers is running the following exciting activities:

• Painting Day - as part of Easter Sunday at Coal Creek we are going to run a follow up to GeekFest 2016's wildly succesful Paint+Take event.
• Hero Kids - an exciting adventure roleplaying game for children aged 4-10.
• Easter MTG Tournament - a very small (12 places) Magic: The Gathering draft tournament will take place on the second Thursday of the hols.

See the Special Events page for full details!

Terrain Crusade Competition

Terrain For Hippos in association with The Campaigner is proud to bring you the TERRAIN CRUSAD COMPETITION!

Allow me to quote lavishly from the Campaigner (because I am overly lazy and do not wish to write my own spiel)

"Now you can have the talents of The Campaigner’s resident terrain expert, Owen Top, among your own collection. The building Owen created for last issues Terrain Crusade is up for grabs. But it can’t go to just any home, it has to be won by Owen’s most learned student.The challenge is to show Owen what you have learnt by creating a piece of terrain. It can be any size, but must be on a circular base 120mm in diameter (the size of a compact disc… how about that) and can fit any genre, theme or game system you like. The more creative and skilful the more you are likely to impress Owen.

Once completed you can send your entry to contact@thecampaignermagazine.com. Include your name, up to five photos showing the terrain piece from different angles, as well as a brief description on what the piece is and how you built it. Owen will choose the entry he most thinks fulfils the ideals of the Terrain Crusade.

Entries close Friday 25 March. One entry per person. Entry is available worldwide.

All Outta Bubblegum.

There will be a crippling Brad shortage on Thursday, meaning that we cannot go ahead with the usual Star Wars: Edge of the Empire session. Which means Thursday is a perfect time to kick arse and chew bubblegum. And run out of gum. So we will play All Outta Bubblegum!

Star Wars character generation.

The plan is to start playing Star Wars: Edge of the Empire next week (although I have another GeekFest meeting, meaning we may not have a whole bunch of time). If you want to think about characters, here is a link to a handy character generator spreadsheet. We will need to check over characters you create and make sure everything is going to work, but the spreadsheet will give you some idea of what is possible.

Co-incidentally, the holiday program session next thursday is 'Introduction to Sci Fi Roleplaying' and will be about Star Wars: Edge of the Empire.

Please note that as I only have the core rulebook for Edge of the Empire, we have only eight races and six careers to choose from, although the spreadsheet has an enormous number to choose from. The core species and careers are all at the top of their respective lists.
Available species are:

• Bothan
• Droid
• Gand
• Human
• Rodia
• Trandoshan
• Twi'lek
• Wookie

Available careers are:

• Bounty Hunter
• Colonist
• Explorer
• Hired Gun
• Smuggler
• Technician

Each career has three 'specialisations', (for instance, if you want to be a pilot, that's a specialisation of Smuggler, Mercenary is a Hired Gun speciality etc.) all of these are listed in the spreadsheet, and all of them are available.

New RPG session starts this week - Star Wars: Edge of the Empire

With the release of Episode VII (and more importantly, the CGI series Star Wars: Rebels!) the time is ripe for Edge of the Empire! This Thursday I plan to launch a new RPG session, playing mercenaries, bounty hunters, smugglers and other denizens of the outer rim. Some of you may be familiar with the SW:EotE rules - some time ago we played the beginner game. It's a very simple system to grasp, and rewards story telling and imaginative play.

I am looking for FOUR players. If you are interested, either post a comment below or email me.
We will carry out character generation and play the opening chapter of the campaign on Thursday Jan 7th.