Hi! My friends on the Net know me as the Cyborg Trucker. Being new to the forum I thought I would introduce myself.

I've been a gamer for most of my life starting at the age of 12 and I'm 30-"cough cough" now. I've played tons of RPGs and Wargames and have tried most of the incarnations that Warzone/Mutant Chronicles have gone through. I love to paint and craft miniatures in my spare time. I have crafted everything from an Algeroth Nepherite to a 40K Apocalypse Warlord Titan. So in a way I guess I should have been more taken back by the idea of a prepainted game. But what's really great about the CMG is I get to play right away. Crafting is a lot of fun, but the wait nearly kills me everytime. And if I want I can always give mine a touch of the brush to make them a little more unique at a later time.

I was asked by another member to relay my experiences with the game. So I'm going to post my original Blog entries from Cyborg Trucker's Wargaming and Roleplaying Blog . Now please don't be put off by how the story starts as with all good tales, the protaganist has to go through a trial before ultimately triumphing!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Holy Sh*t!

I went to the Fantasy Flight Games site and practically took a dump in my shorts! I was, till three seconds ago, very excited about the new collectible miniature game for Mutant Chronicles . Then I saw the price for a single booster of four figures. $19.99!!! The booster packs contain one common, one uncommon, one rare and one double sized figure(1 in 4 is rare). They are pre-painted, and the ones on the site look pretty good, but I know better than to believe the production ones will be that nice. Battlefield Evolution with all the bulging-eyed troops Mongoose put out haven't exactly flown off the shelves of my local games store.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Mutant Chronicles CMG... Pretty cool!

Or mark this day down on your calendars. Cause it's not often I recant my opinions.

Admittedly when I first heard about this game I had some serious concerns. I was totally not liking the figure size or that they we're collectible with $20 boosters. Also I had more concerns about game play and other such stuff.

BUT Fantasy Flight fixed that! The figures stayed the same size, but they made the boosters "window boxes" so you knew what you we're getting*

When I got to finally see what was in the box my eyes were instantly drawn to the dice for two reasons.

1. They suspiciously looked like the dice for Doom. I bought the Doom boardgame. I hated it on so many levels, and so did my players. It was a total sh-t system IMO and my players.
2. I was also worried that they may have ignored a complaint by many gamers that the dice weren't etched so the numbers and symbols rub off easily.

BUT Fantasy flight fixed that! The makers fixed the Doom system and made it very playable and fun. The Dice are etched so all those sweaty palm gamers out there don't end up with blank dice after a few games.

Some people have issues with the paint jobs on the figures. My statement in defense is. As prepaints at that size go they are pretty OK. What would AT-43 figures at that size look like? Hell, anyone remember the Battlefield Evolution figs in their tiny size(I think they were supposed to be true 20mm) with the horrible paint jobs? Every soldier without goggles on had their eyes bulging out. So if that's your hang up you must not play any prepaint games I figure.

Last night I bought the Bauhaus Venusian Command box set. Which comes with 4 figures. A Venusian Ranger, x2 Venusian Ranger Kaptains and a Bear Sergeant. I do wonder why there are two Kaptains and one grunt but oh well.

So as a fun beer and pretzels game of sci-fantasy skirmishing I give it 4 out of five stars on the CBT-o-Meter.

* You do have to buy the starter set to get the nice full deck of cards to know the stats of all your critters and the rulebook. OR you can go to their site where you can print them out and a full rulebook. But getting the box set is still important as it comes with the double-sided battle map and the special dice.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Capitol forces in Mutant Chronicles CMG

Wow are those guys a bunch of nut-busters! They are fast and extremely lethal at range! If it weren't for my Dark Legion forces having extra hit points or regenerative properties I wouldn't get as far as I do. But the thing that is killing me is the speed. They pop one or two of my units for a few VPs. Then usually by the second or third turn they just jump on top of two or three Victory Zones for the final points needed to win and I'm left up **** creek without a plunger!
I've got to work on speeding up my forces. Unfortunately except for the Bestial Speed Command Card there really isn't much I can do and there is only one in the starter set.
So what to do? I've been looking at the Gommorian Emasculator. His Barrage power can hit all enemies within 8 hexes with up to 2 points of damage regardless of LOS. I'll have to check, but there may be a Command Card that can enhance the damage he does. Otherwise maybe getting more savage beasties like Alakhai the Cunning. With his 1 armor point maybe he will survive longer and get to where I need him. I wish the old Necromower was available like in the original Warzone table top game. I could sure use one of those zipping across the battlefield keeping my enemy's heads down.
I thought about getting the other two lower rank Necromutants. Because of the Mutation power which when the highest rank Necromutant dies, you replace him with the next lowest. Then the same when that one dies. That's great cause potentially you have a guy who has to be killed three times for a total of 8 wounds! But the first two kills alone will score your enemy 5 VPs. Again working against my new goal of a faster Dark Legion force. Arrgghh!!

So I have a lot of thinking to do... (side note: I later re-read the book and now know that you can take up to 3 of the Bestial Speed cards)

My first Mutant Chronicles CMG army lists.

Next week I'm going to play Mutant Chronicles CMG versus my friend Mark so I built two 10 point armies to try out. It's funny I thought trying to fill a 10/10/10 list would be hard but making sure I had enough action tokens for buy back and everything else proved challenging. Or at least made it hard to decide what to keep and what to drop.

Dark Legion: Algeroth, 10pt. Tournament Army
Gold Elements
1. Golgotha
2. Necromutant Defiler
3. Necrovisual Symbosis c.c.
4. Invoke Frenzy c.c.
5. The Devouring Darkness c.c.
6. Action Token
7. Action Token
8. Action Token
9. Action Token
10. Action Token

Silver Elements
1. Gommorian Emasculator
2. Ezoghoul
3. Black Technology c.c.
4. Psychic Possession c.c.
5. Apocalypse c.c.
6. Action Token
7. Action Token
8. Action Token
9. Action Token
10. Action Token

Bronze Elements
1. Technomancer
2. Necromutant
3. Bestial Speed c.c.
4. Bestial Speed c.c.
5. Invoke Terror c.c.
6. Action Token
7. Action Token
8. Action Token
9. Action Token
10. Action Token

Megacorperation: Bauhaus , 10pt. Tournament Army
Gold Elements
1. Bear Kaptain
2. Venusian Ranger Kaptain
3. Venusian Ranger Kaptain
4. Ministry of War c.c.
5. Superior Technology c.c.
6. Action Token
7. Action Token
8. Action Token
9. Action Token
10. Action Token

Silver Elements
1. Vulkan Battlesuit
2. Venusian Ranger Kaptain
3. Sniper Shot c.c.
4. Speed Reload c.c.
5. Noble Reflexes c.c.
6. Action Token
7. Action Token
8. Action Token
9. Action Token
10. Action Token

Bronze Elements
1. Venusian Ranger
2. Venusian Ranger
3. Heavy Artillery c.c.
4. Heavy Artillery c.c.
5. Trick Shot c.c.
6. Trick Shot c.c.
7. Decoy c.c.
8. Action Token
9. Action Token
10. Action Token

I'm hope in the near future that they make figures for these guys from the RPG and TT miniature game.

Mutant Chronicles Three-way!

Anyway I'm here again to gush over the amazingly fun game Mutant Chronicles the CMG. I gathered up my ***** Greg and headed over to Adventures in Gaming to get a game in. While setting up, Chris asked if he could join in and we said sure. Greg ran the Dark Legion , Chris built a Capitol force and I played the Bauhaus Megacorperation. Each of us built a 10/10/10 army. We laid out the two maps with opposite sides up. Greg and I started out opposite each other on the map with the buildings. Chris started out on the far side of the open battlefield map.
It's funny, I had a Vulkan Battlesuit in my force and for most of the battle it hid from Chris' two Banshees. If you don't know, Banshees get two extra dice to roll to attack models mounted on double sized bases. I probably should have been more bold with the battlesuit but the pair of them staring me down made me more shy to bring it out of cover.
Greg unfortuanely got ground up between Chris the "rock" and my forces the "hard place". Capitol is all about speed. They have hover bikes and jump pack troops that scream forward to engage. Also the bikes can transport an extra soldier so even the foot-sloggers are quick.
Bauhaus on the other hand is about firepower and armor. The Dark Legion is kind of a multi-role force. You can take troops good at ranged combat or multi-wound bruisers. So with the right purchases you can build a force that matches your fighting style.
Greg's force was a mix and in the end they didn't quite perfom quite as expected. Also there were plenty of botched rolls that saved my ass. Taking and holding the Victory Zone that let me recycle dead bronze units didn't hurt either. Greg towards the end used the Apocalypse command card during two different rounds. When it goes off it moves all enemy sources in LOS back to thier respective starting zones of a killed Dark Legion model. It kind of helped me as Chris kept being pushed away from victory zones he was trying to hold. In the end I scraped out a victory. It was tight towards the end. A loss of one or two models and Chris with his 17 points worth of model kills (I only had 12) might have turned it into a annihilation victory. Then only the complete destruction of the other side would have earned a victory.
All in all it was a tense, fun and interesting battle. And to think about 4-5 months ago I was ready to sign off on this game. I'm glad I gave it a chance. It really is a great fun game. If I had kids I think it would be excellent for getting younger gamers in the hobby.
See mom! I do try new things! But I'm still not trying okra pan fried in corn meal. Yuck-o!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

So what is Mutant Chronicles?

A fellow on the net asked me. He hadn't heard of the game. So as a public service message to my followers and visitors who might not know I'll give you a short brief on the history of Mutant Chronicles. I'm going to Wikipedia for my sources, so fair warning...

Mutant Chronicles is a pen-and-paper role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic world, originally published in 1993. It has spawned a franchise of card games, miniature wargames, video games, novels, comic books, and a movie based on the game world . A collectible miniatures game by Fantasy Flight Games is due for release in June 2008.

Mutant Chronicles was developed by the Swedish company Target Games as a successor of their earlier Mutant RPG series . The rights to the game are now owned by Paradox Entertainment .

In 2006, the Swedish game company COG Games secured the license rights to publish a new edition of the role-playing game, for which there currently is no release date.

Spin-offs

• Doomtrooper , a collectible card game where you command warriors, magic and resources against your opponent(s).
• Dark Eden , a second collectible card game designed by Bryan Winter based on the tribes remaining on planet Earth . Genesis , an expansion set, was never released. ^{[ 4 ]}
• Warzone , a Miniature wargame much like Warhammer 40,000 . A Warzone real-time strategy computer game was in the process of being made but never published.
• A Doom Troopers video game was released for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis systems.
• A trilogy of three novels set in this universe were published by Penguin Books to boost the franchise and widen the perspective of the role-players.
• The Siege of the Citadel was a board game where players would fight their way through a citadel filled with monsters from the Dark Legion.
• Fury of the Clansmen and Blood Berets were two-player board games where players (or teams of players) could recreate battles between Imperial troops and the Dark Legion.
• Acclaim Comics published a set of 5 Golgotha comics in 1996. Issue #5 was a Source Book with minimal info about some of the characters from the comics. Each of the comics came packaged with one of 4 promotional cards for the Doomtrooper CCG.
• Fantasy Flight Games published a miniatures game set in the Mutant Chronicles universe and was released in August 2008.
• Dark Horse Comics is developing a comic book series based on the upcoming movie. ^{[ citation needed ]}

OK the game I'm playing currently is Mutant Chronicles the Collectable Miniature Game (CMG) and you can find out more about it here .

Here's a clip from the Super NES and Genesis consoles Doomtrooper video game.


Here's a clip of the direct to DVD movie Mutant Chronicles. For me it's a fun entertaining movie. Though, and I don't mean that in a mean spirited way but, I can see why the big guys didn't put it through the theaters. Though for what they have sent to the big screen it doesn't say much for their thought processes.


Here are some movies of people playing/demoing the game.






Here is one fellow's revue of some of the miniature games produces for the storyline. Fast forward to minute 1:30 into the first video or you will be annoyed. Also he's a fanboy! Fair Warning!
Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

Nice! Thanks for posting. Interesting reading about your experience with MC. It was a bit weird using the 54mm at first, but after a few games I really could have been playing with rocks and it would still be awesome (because of the game mechanics). The minis have "grown" on me big time as well, and as a miniature painter they could easily be painted by your own liking (and it's easy with them being 54mm).

Don't mean to be correcting you or anything dude, but I think it's just called Mutant Chronicles: Miniatures Game now, not CMG, but it says CMG on all the boxes yet so what do I know.

Regarding the movie, Tom Jane said on the Raw Forums on the 9th of Dec that the director of MC is working on finishing the movie (editing, effects etc). And they will have a "wide" release through Magnolia Films in April next year in the US. I think the leaked version is better than most $100 million budget "sci-fi" blockbusters released today... Everyone's complaining about the dialogue and etc, but I wasn't looking for an oscar movie either. I expected blood and gore with cheesy lines, and that's exactly what kind of movie it is. Compare it to a low budget John Carpenter movie with the director being influenced by The Crow/Dark City in terms of miniatures/old green screen(not blue screen, because it's shot in HD) techniques being used instead of CGI. And the rumour is that the budget was US $1 million, don't have anything official on it though.

I've completely forgot the scale issue to be honest. It really has been a long time since a game has got me so hooked. I think if you met me in person you would probably describe me as giddy when I talk about MC. I'm even dabbling with the thought of making a few figures for my army that FFG may not plan on creating. In the past few years I've been practicing with green stuff and along with a short lesson with Joe Orteza from a Gencon past has me itching to try . I've always been big fans of the Razide and the the Pratorian Stalkers. And while I don't expect them to create their own versions of all the Warzone beaasties, I would like to build those just for home-ruled games.

Also since having seen the movie I'm thinking of getting Dundjinni software to create new maps. The first I want to do is a Nepharite Citadel and mabye make a few new Victory Zones for inside.

But first things first. I have to slap around my friend Mark's Brotherhood forces this Tuesday!

Excellent.

I hear yah about the Razides and Stalkers. The more people getting into MC: MG, the more units we'll see being released. Just ordered the 4 wave 3 packs from Ebay and can't wait to get ahold of the Vulkan.

Let us know if/when you get some maps done dude. Siege of the Citadel is one of my fav boardgames ever, but I wouldn't mind a re-release by FFG or someone else.

This is going to become the break room drug of choice outside of our managers office. The army building system sells itself. Glad to see others enjoying MC.

LOL!! How refreshing to see that people in fact, DO watch my videos.

I am the guy with the fiance playing and demoing the game; I replied to Cyborgtrucker on a recent post about my youtube vblog, which features all kind of Miniature Wargaming and RPGing, Mutant Chronicles being a HUGE one of them ( and one of my all-time favs!).

Thanks again for showing off my videos; I hope you all liked them. Me and my fiance are also currently running a campaign which you can also see on the vblog, called a "Grand Declaration of War" and takes place on Venus. There is a story to it, so I can only hope you guys check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/neuicon

Lastly, your post was excellent; and that fanboy is "franzyland", he's a little off if you ask me. His review of Warzone was hilarious as are some of his other videos; hee, hee. Anyhow, thanks again and thanks also for posting!