Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I got about 7 swampy dudes
in the back that are ready to beat your ass.
And, and today we are going to be looking at Cauldron from Hill
Giant Games, a swamp skirmish game and you will love it, it
says. I'll write in the book right
there. Cauldron is a swamp skirmish
game by Hill Giant Games and you will love it.
Facts. Yeah, absolutely.
We love it so. We love it and we're going to
talk about that. But before we start talking
about that, look who joined us. Look who's here.
The prodigal son has returned. Hunter is here.
Yeah. So now you.
Actually the same hoodie and hat I always am wearing so.
Yeah, I think this might be the same shirt I wore when we played
the game the other day. But for those for those a
podcast like they can't see it, I'm rocking my Glave shirt Glave
magazine. It is a like a a gaming
lifestyle magazine that absolutely slaps from a hot head
collective. Actually had CJ on to to talk
about it. Got both issues right here.
It goes hard to check it out. We'll make sure the links are.
I don't know where the fuck links are, but but but how you
been buddy? How's life?
What have you been doing? I've been going to school.
I've been a little schoolboy, you know, I've been good.
You know, we haven't been playing many tabletop RPGs in my
group recently, so, you know, I've not been gaming too much.
So yeah, it's been, it's been fine.
My first, my first semester at college, it's been a big old
blast. And I have many more semesters
ahead of me to really look forward to so.
Yeah, this is your. This is your second first
semester, right? When?
Was my first first semester. Have you never been to college
before? Oh, that's true.
I did do when I was 18, I wanted to be a teacher.
My parents talked me out of it. So I did 1 semester of Community
College when I was like 18 and I was like, yeah, well, now that I
don't know what I want to do, I don't want to go to college.
So big shout out my family for guiding me in life.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah.
I mean it's better to not go to school and and get debt that you
didn't need. Like I I paid my college degree
or a degree I never used until I was like 35 so.
That's. Very fair.
So that was that was I. Would have gotten a like a like
a regular degree and then I would have got my teaching
credentials. So I still have had a degree
which actually does have value in getting hired to even like
office jobs which have been more consistent and more reliable.
But you know, whatever, I guess I'm just saying if my kid, if I
ever had a kid was like, hey, I want to go to school for
something, I'd be like, great. You should pursue educate like
your own education. So that was a bad thing that
you're yes. It was a it was a stupid thing
for them to do. Gotcha, gotcha.
Yeah. Yeah, I, I definitely grew up.
You're not that much younger than me, but I definitely grew
up in the era of you must go get a bachelor's degree or you will
be homeless and and and poor and everything forever.
Your life will be over. So I, I forced myself to go to
school, get a degree halfway through, switched to a second
major to a degree I was never going to use and had to go back
to school again to do my job. So yay education system in
America. But anyway, but that's it.
That's that's, that's, that's, that's been the last two months.
Yeah, I think so. I can't think of anything else.
I mean, like there have been the holidays and stuff and you know,
we had, we had some stuff going on.
But yeah, nothing stream talking worthy.
What about you? What are you up?
To well, I went to PAX, PAX Unplugged, which was which was
super cool. I got to do that.
You you, you went last year. I did but you didn't go this
year which missed you there buddy.
It was fun but I I I worked the World champ booth again but Adam
Bass is actually there so I got to chill with Adam the entire
time for. Adam Bass.
Yeah, the literally the legendary Adam Bass that we, we
have never been shy about calling this an Adam Bass Stand
podcast, and that persists to this day.
Great to hang out with him for three days, chill, meet a lot of
people at PAX, have a lot of fun.
I I released the ash can of my first game, mentioned it
slightly. It's right.
This is the ash can. It's called death cut in stone.
It is a brutal Old West W skirmish game that hacks Luke
Gehring's violent system into basically like like tombstone,
like a Wild West shootout. Super quick, super brutal.
It's designed to show kind of how dumb violence is because
basically everyone fucking dies. Everyone dies, you know?
I mean, you get into a gunfight and everyone's shooting at you
and you're shooting at them. The likelihood of death's pretty
high. Yeah, yeah.
And, and once you get the hang of it, I kind of also designed
it to be like really quick, like once you know the game, it could
take like 20-30 minutes top. So you could play it between
like bigger games if you're, if you're, you know, playing at an
event or something. So it exists it's it's printed
under midnight oil publishing house If you go to midnight oil
pH dot IO midnight oil dot itch dot IO midnight oil pH dot itch
dot IO. Bro remember how we gave people
shit about not remember their itch?
I don't remember that but you can find ash can of it.
I'm going to drop a 1.2 here soon got will Rd. from forbidden
Psalm going to do the final layout for it got Ville, who's
done a lot of art for for will, especially in the source between
the stars, doing the the brutal Old West art for it.
That'll hopefully drop before the end of the year in its final
form. But I do have some some of these
little ashcans. I'm going to send you send you
one of these little ASICS ashcans, but it's free on it.
You'll always be free. The final version will be free.
So if you guys want to go check the first game ever released,
it's funny, we did a TRBG podcast for three years and then
I dropped the skirmish game. Perfect.
But but that's about it. And then I did meet Dylan, who
is one of the the writer from Hill Giant Games, White Tiger,
Tablecraft former. Co worker of mine, yeah.
Which is great. Tell that so he.
So let's let's loop this whole story.
So I found Cauldron and Cauldron fucking slaps and goes hard.
I think I might even found it through Big Boy Game time
because they do like the boss fight scenes and blood work and
just some amazing shit. And so then I saw Cauldron and I
eventually reached out to Dell and it was just like, hey, I
love Eternal. Eternal slaps and Cauldron looks
incredible. Is there going to be a print run
or whatever? And we chatted a little bit and
then out of nowhere he was like, you know, I actually know your
Co host Hunter. I knew him like 10 years ago and
so how so? So which was a fucking crazy
Small World moment, but how do you know Dylan?
So for like like 6 or 7 years I worked at Summit climbing, yoga
and fitness in Texas and Oklahoma.
I was a director at one point. So I did work at the Oklahoma
and small. Actually, I'm wearing the Summit
hoodie right now. Look at that Summit hoodie.
And yeah, Dylan worked at Carrollton.
RIP Carrollton. It's a location that was really
old and the ceiling got ripped off in a freak wet like storm
snap that ruined it. But yeah, Dellum worked at the
Carrollton location and he ran some sessions of Dungeons and
Dragons 5th Edition for us, which at the time I had
actually, that was like about the time I grew really born with
5th Edition. So I was just constantly trying
to break things in the game. And so I definitely, I genuinely
remember I was playing as like one of those like unearthed
Arcana. Like I think it was like a
glamour Bard at the time. And you know, the Unearthed
Arcana when it's first, like when it comes out, it's always
stumped up and empowered. You know, it's always super
broken. And so like, I use the glamour
ability for the Bard to like, totally skip a fight, like,
completely. And Dylan was like, well, that
was like a large part of our night tonight.
And I'm like, yeah, well, you know.
So you were that guy. You were that fucking guy.
Listen, I was playing within the rules.
I was acting how my character would.
OK, that's what that guy would say.
I just did what my character would do.
But so, so 10 years ago, you actually worked with Ellen and
played games with Ellen, which is the craziest fucking thing.
So not you, not you OK. Because he was just like, yeah,
I knew 100 from 10 years ago, which was crazy.
So then I got a meeting with PAX, super nice guy.
And then and then and then we played Cauldron and now we're
going to review Cauldron, which is super exciting.
I was actually supposed to also play with Dale and at PAX, but
we didn't end up getting to. But I feverishly with a lot of
Adderall and caffeine, in six hours painted up an entire
Cauldron war band. And that's what some of some of
these little guys are. This is.
I wish it would focus, but this is this is my orc.
This is my little orc guy. That's better.
Yeah. I painted up some of these
trolls that are actually the Westphalia, like Merkborg.
I'm sorry, Goblins. Little goblin guys.
Yeah. The.
Terrifying Merkborg goblins easily.
In my opinion. Most disturbing part about
Merkborg is the goblins. Yeah, for sure, for sure did
this little guy. I did them in six hours.
I was proud of what they looked like.
I did touch them up a little bit last night actually.
I completely repainted this little runt fucker.
But I, and what's cool is like I I built my war band based on the
minis I had. So my physical war band is
actually the same as the digital war band I'm working on.
The only one I didn't get to finish was my troll.
It's not quite this purple in real life.
This is super saturated. But I did last night like re
prime all the areas I don't need to paint again.
But he was close enough to to done if I actually took him to
the table. But so that's the other thing
I've been working on is, is just getting some mini painting done.
But I have a physical. I also do want to rebase these
onto square bases just because that's kind of the vibe, but I'm
worried about these guys because I super glued them down pretty
hard. But we'll see.
But that's that's kind of what I've been doing is, you know,
doing episodes without you with a hold in my heart.
You know, a lot of interviews put put my game out, you know,
doing the packs and plug thing and trying to get more skirmish
games playing because we're definitely going to be talking
about more of those throughout the year.
And that's kind of that's kind of it for the last, you know,
little bit. And we have coming up this is
going to be episode. What did I say?
Was two 97298, something like that?
290 something. I think this is 298.
Something like that. So we got, we got we're, we're
about to hit episode 300. I know it wasn't that long ago.
I think it was like June or July.
We hit episode 200. But then we renumbered all of
our episodes to be the actual number they are instead of
having a bunch of series off to the side.
So this will be episode 300 coming up when we've decided
that's our year interview is also going to be our 300th
episode. And we're going to, we're going
to tweak this show like we do pretty much every year.
We're going to tweak the show a little bit and we'll talk about
that with episode 300 and whatnot.
People that are avid watches the show might notice some small
changes now, but but we'll talk about that a little bit more.
But let's how do you people hopping into Cauldron?
No. No, All right.
Well, that's it. That's the same joke we do every
time. You're welcome, everybody.
Bye. No.
All right, So boom. Let's look at it my what is
happening? There we.
Go I put something black in the background and that's why it's
all fucked up. Sorry if there's some podcast
land. I'm adjusting a window because I
adjusted a window and then I had to adjust it again.
So Cauldron, this is the cover. Let's show the cover real quick.
Zoom to page level and Cauldron is a swamp scrimmage game by
Hill Driving Games and you will love it.
That's what I said. It says so right on the back of
the fucking book. Cauldron was released by Hill
Driving Games on Itch on December 15th, 2023 and has
since had two print runs. If you look in the book on the
back you can even say right there it says print run 2.
Boom, cool medal on that. Too.
Yeah, that's love that. Yeah.
So the second print run's happening right now.
Hill Giant Games is a collaboration between Dell and
Myette, AKA White Tiger Tablecraft and Steve Zeich, AKA
Big Boy Game Time. You can find both of them at
their Instagrams at White Tiger Tablecraft and Big Boy Game
Time. And you can find Hill Giant
Games at Hill Giant Games on Instagram and
hillgiantgameshillgiant.h.ioforfortherestoftheirstuffbutandyoucanbuycauldrondigitally@thehillgiant.h.ioslashcauldronandthisthisniceoldprintrunwegothillgiant.bigcartel.com. So that's Cauldron.
It is a skirmish game. As we've said for a while now,
we're going to be covering more stuff besides table top
role-playing games, one of which is scrimmage games, because I've
developed a, a deep, deep love for them very quickly, a lust
even for now. They're super fun to play.
You don't need, you generally need only one person to play
them. I've been getting pretty good in
Tabletop Simulator. So it's been a lot.
It's been, it's been fun to play and a little bit easier also to,
to get that together. But also, I'm not even going to
get into all the complaining that I usually do about
everything but but that's cauldron, man.
It's it's good. I really enjoyed playing this.
I enjoyed going through it. I, I will go over what we like
and, and dislike big quotes because there's just nothing on
our dislike. But yeah, I, I, I genuinely
cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this one.
It's also just easy to pick up and like immediately get going,
you know? Yeah, I feel like this is the
perfect kind of intro game to things in the way that like, I
think this is a great intro for people to get in a skirmish
because I do think it was fun, pretty straightforward and not
just not difficult at all to really to get going, but also
has enough depth to it that it's not just an intro game, right?
Like this can be pretty easy to pick up for beginners to
skirmish and also really fun of people that have been doing
skirmish forever because of all the options stuff that you have.
And to me, that's what's great about intro games like Mouse
Rider for tip top role-playing games.
I think is a great personal intro game because it's super
approachable for people new to tip top role-playing games.
But for people that are super experienced, there's still
plenty there for you. It's not just designed to be a
beginner game. There's a depth and that's
exactly how I felt about this game is I think as as an intro
game, it's incredible, but there's so much you can do with
it and my God, I mean, we're going to get to the likes and
dislikes, but the the layout fucks so.
It's a great looking book, you know, it's very readable still,
but yeah, very strong vibes in the layout.
Incredible. And we'll get to, we'll get to
that a little bit more. We're going to go over the game
itself a little bit, but hop it into the table of contents real
quick just to go over some stuff.
Cauldron is, like we said, who it was, Dylan and Steve as the
primary credits. But throughout the entire book,
there are a ton of like actual pictures of minis, which is
great in scrimmage games, and it's making me wish that I would
have painted up cowboy minis and put pictures of them in my book.
So maybe, maybe it'll get delayed a bit when I buy cowboy
minis. It's not too late.
So I can promise you I didn't buy like $400.00 worth of minis
and and cowboy buildings and stuff that's currently in the
mail on the way here, but we'll see how it goes.
But wanted to shout out a bunch of those people are Shane
Brockway at the Blind Man Grant Kaufman.
It was one of the head play testers, but Curtis Fell
Ramshackle games. Dude, I have so many ramshackle
menus in the other room. The stuff they make is
incredible. I think they carry all of the OR
most of the I'm going to say her name completely wrong Anna
Paulsonic stuff who does some of the most incredible sculpts in
like weird little indie skirmishy kind of stuff.
I have some of their entire lines.
I backed the Kickstarter recently to get their entire
line of like everything ever. So really excited for that but
love that dark tech. Vincent Fiore.
Gubermeister Gubens gets. Trent Holbrook.
Miscast. If you know anything about
anything that has to do with what we're talking about, you
know who the fuck miscast is. Maddie Big dog Knuckles from
knuckle bones miniatures. Rat boy Roy from rat boy minis.
Brian Rue from slug Wizards. Anthony Salzetta Bigotoni minis
and Tanner Simpson Simpson miniatures also in my opinion
probably the greatest indie human being alive right now.
Everything that they do is fucking perfect.
I think that Werecock wanted reward 10,000 credits is
probably the best teach RPG and skirmish game that exists
currently. So they they only make hot fire
all the time. So incredible grouping of people
in this book by some incredible people.
But tip of contents, there's three sections of the book.
There's getting started, there's playing the game and there's
after the bloodshed. So we're going to hop into the
rules breakdown and then the character generation breakdown.
So we'll be jumping mostly into the playing the game section
first and, and I'll go over how the game works.
And then Hunter will hop into how to build your war band.
So let me tweak the, but you know, if it was hyperlinked,
it'd be a lot easier to do this. But we'll, we'll, we'll, yeah,
we'll scroll through. So the rules.
Breaks like yeah OK I understand it needs to be hyperlinked.
God damn it. I know right?
Again the layout is fantastic. I love this.
I love anytime you have a two page bread that just has like a
bar on the side. I almost, I hate looking at this
in pages but I almost wanna look at it in pages all the time cuz
I think it's really great in pages.
Yeah, it's great in pages. And then the art and the layout.
We gotta stop talking with layout.
We're gonna talk about a little bit more, but what is the gist
of this game? In in Cauldron, you concoct a
war band of three to seven green skin menaces and Duke it out in
a gnarly swamp called, you guessed it, the Cauldron.
And that is the gist of the game.
It's a skirmish game where you play as goblins, orcs, trolls or
beasties and in in a swamp and it's and it's great and it's
funny and it's hysterical. It's like when I no, I'll say
that later. So Cauldron is a swamp skirmish
game that only uses D twelves. Probably the most underutilized
and underappreciated of all of the standard tabletop dice.
I love when games just go fuck it I'm only using D fours or I'm
only using D twelves. But I think there's even more D4
games than there are D12 games, so I think it was a great use of
the D12 all the way through. I will say man, I got to play
Cauldron again yesterday with Verdigris.
He made scum. I think I talked to you about
it. When we played I rolled
terrible. When I played against Tim I
rolled much better. And I will say the differences
in D twelves and someone rolls A2 and someone rolls A10 plus
damage modifiers, you're just one shot in people.
Yeah. And it's fun, but all right, so
playing the game, you build a war band for three to seven
little guys. Hunter's going to go over that.
The game is played on a 2 by two or a three by three board.
I made a three by three board in Tabletop Simulator and we
learned pretty quickly. And I did ask Dylan to two by
two would have been better for starting war bands with the size
of the war band and how many moves, because I think we went
what's something like like 3 rounds before we really even got
into base to base contact. Yeah.
So I'm gonna redo, I'm gonna redo my board as a two by two.
And I'm thinking about even just publishing it onto Tabletop
Simulator so people can play with it, especially with those
animated miniatures that we found that were incredible.
Absolutely, yeah. But but we'll see.
So when you do make your board, it's a swamp.
So you want trees, hills, water, big rocks, you know, stuff like
that. And and you'll have treasure
tokens that are dispersed around the board, which is super
important for a campaign play to buy more weapons, bomber dudes,
all that kind of thing. At the end in the book, there
are 12 scenarios that are all incredible.
First of all, the layout on all of them is great, but there's
one following the spores where it's literally like a giant like
mushroom field and you're just basically tripping balls the
entire time you play. The one that we played, and I
also played this again with with Verdigris, was the Kings Ransom
and I thought that was so much fun.
Basically the way Kings Ransom works is if me and Hunter are
playing when we did, I pick one of his guys and he's my target.
He picks one of my guys and that's his target.
And the game ends when you kill the other person's target.
And then you get endless bragging rights, which means
that once per game, a character with that keyword may use an
action to brag. So until the next initiative
role, all enemy models suffer -3 to the appropriate skill check
whenever they target any character besides the bragger.
The way that the book is written is so funny and so dry.
I literally. So funny.
Yeah, I literally told Dylan. I thought whoever wrote it was
just like some grumpy British guy because that is the humor
through the entire thing. Even even the, the vibes of the
game, like swamp shit with square bases and stuff.
I'm like, got to be got to be someone from over there.
You know, it's not, but it's it's great.
And the, the, the layout on this page too, for the, for the, the
art is great too. I love the the picture and it
says cut here to brag, brag, brag, brag, brag, brag, brag.
Like right across the throat of the guy.
It's really incredible. So there are 12 scenarios that
you can play and, and then then you have the system itself,
which is honestly so incredibly easy.
It's pretty straightforward. It is a skirmish game.
So there's initiative, there's deployment, things like that.
So you roll for who gets to deploy first.
You pick a side, you deploy your entire war band on the edge.
Then the other person does and you roll for initiative always
at D12, see who gets to go first.
And then you just alternate activations back and forth, back
and forth. That was a question I meant to
ask Dylan. It never talks about initiative
after the first round. So how we played when we played
you and I and when we played with, when I played with Vertigo
as well is, is just at the end of the round, the way it goes
back and forth, it just continues back and forth.
Like there's not a whole lot to do at the end of each round
anyway. So the each model when they get
activated gets 2 actions and you can't do any action twice except
for move. So you can double move.
The moves aren't super big I think base moving is like 4
inches and then you can get some attributes and stuff to make it
higher. The actions you can take are
move, fight, shoot, forage, cast a spell, use an item, pick up
treasure, fleet, and narrative action.
All great to. My favorites in there are
Forage, which is great especially.
Very good, Especially, yeah, when you're so far away from
each other and you like you don't want to move out of cover
if you have found cover like you can forage and get something
useful. Yeah, and and it's also really
nice when you feel that there's not really anything for you to
do. You're like, okay, I moved and I
can't shoot you right now, but we're not quite in base context,
So what can I do? Fucking forage.
And so obviously roll the D12 for forage and you can get a
bunch of really cool items that actually can seriously change
the game before you even touch base based contact.
Like a couple that were really crazy is Poisonous Frog.
You can basically rub it on your weapons and they're poisonous
for the rest of the game, which is crazy.
The mysterious mushroom comes up and you could get something like
black fungus if you eat it, which is game +2 to combat for
the rest of the game. So some really cool stuff in
here. Another some other funny just
writing moments like #10 through 12 on Mysterious Mushroom is ego
death. The character is seen into a
dimension beyond it, learns a random spell, or there's one
that's just called perfect throwing rock, and guess what
that does? Yeah, it's so.
It's so fucking funny, dude. It's so funny dude, Even the
shiny bit of metal part, like at the end, like you get a shiny
bit of metal. Basically you you shine in
someone's eyes and they get a disadvantage.
But the end of the line says after this item is used, the
character holding it accidentally drops it in the
mud. Classic.
Like it says that I didn't have the classic like it's written
right in there. It's like classic.
It just cracks me the fuck up the entire way through.
OK, so you also have skill checks that you can do on top of
your actions. There's combat, there's defense,
and there's brains. Brains is generally used for
casting or resisting spells. And then combat is a post skill
checks. So you'll have someone do a like
an attack and they'll roll AD 12 and then the defender will roll
their defense for D12. So everyone has combat stats.
So I'd roll combat. My combat might be like +2
Hanukkah, roll defense, His defense might be like plus one.
We would roll D12. Say that I roll an 8 total and
he rolls A5 total. I hit him and I do three damage.
It's the difference between the two roles is the damage, which
always is going to remind me of like tunnel goons and stuff,
which is a perfect mechanic. So it's a really great clean way
to do it. I will say it is swingy.
If someone rolls high and someone rolls low, you can
easily one shot someone, which I absolutely did.
I'm super cool with that, though.
Yeah, 100% just as often. We didn't swing that wildly.
And so you're like, you're getting a bump.
But I love the fact that you just like, if you get it close
enough, you can just fucking kill somebody, you know?
Like, yeah, if they roll A2, man, you gotta go.
So, yeah, when when I was playing yesterday, I, I shot
someone in the head, I think I rolled A10 and they rolled A2
and literally just, all right, I, I literally shot you in the
head, you're dead. And it was like, all right, I'm
out. That's it.
It was fun. What if I bash you with a big
Rock, You know? You're a little Gabo.
Yeah, you're a little Gabo. Yeah.
And help the life isn't very big.
It's like 456, you know, So and that's why when you play
campaigns, you can buy in more guys and and buff up your dudes.
It's, it's really important to do.
The other important parts of the game are Section 3 of the book,
which is after the bloodshed. So the game does have a campaign
element. It's kind of designed to be a
campaign game actually. So there's a list of ways that
you can gain experience. Things like securing treasure,
friendly characters not taken out of action, friendly hero
taken out of action, like non hero character taken out of
action. You earn experience for the
entire war band and you can spend it on things like
increasing skills or stats, learning spells, stuff like
that. So you can make your war band
better. Also, you have the survival and
permanent injury table, so if you're taken out of combat after
combat's over, you would roll on this table. 1 you die, two to
three you get a permanent injury. 4 to 5 is a close call,
and 6 to 12 full recovery, which it means it's a pretty generous
game. You have like a 5050 chance of
like not being injured at all. Yeah, really the only thing that
is super bad for you is one through 3.
So you have about like a 25% chance of doing like being
really fucked up, but also that means a 75% chance that you're
pretty much fine. And then the permanent injuries
are things like -1 move -1 combat -1 to brains or -1 to
defense, which are permanent, but they're also not like the
worst thing ever unless you stack, which would then suck.
And then the last bit is rolling for treasure.
So anytime you get a treasure a successfully off the edge of the
board, you would roll for it here.
And the options are things like gold potions, magic items, or a
mix of all of them. And obviously it's AD 12.
And then you got D12 magic items listed, things like ghouls, big
toe blade of the small blade, you gotta have it a flying
broom, which is fucking cool. And then you have potions,
things like potion of health, explosive concoction, potion of
resurrection. And again, we're not describing
to you how amazing this book looks.
If you're listening to this in podcast land, I highly suggest
either A go by the book or B watch this episode and you can
see how insane the layout is the whole way through.
But then the rest of the book is basically there's a bestiary,
there's all the attributes used for the beasts and Hunter will
go over that a little bit more and then the back of the game
and and that's basically how the game works.
So, Hunter, how does a war band work?
Oh, you know, I don't really know.
Yeah. So War Band, when you start the
game, you begin with 250 plus 6D12 gold in which to buy your
war band members, the weapons they're wielding and then the
attributes that they have, because they can all have little
little bonuses and attributes. You have a span.
You can have three to seven members of your war band.
Those war bands are made-up of goblins, orcs.
I think you might have said this already, actually.
Trolls and beasts all have their own move, combat, brains,
defense and life, and each of them has a like little special
ability. We'll talk about 1 real quick.
Which one do you want to talk about, Ryan?
Which ability do you like the most?
I like all of them. They're all, like, all of them.
I mean, I really like all of them.
I think the Goblin 1 is the funniest.
The goblin one's great. OK, so for sure for the goblins
special ability, when an enemy character model is with is in
melee combat with three or more goblins, they suffer -1 to all
skill checks and -2 to move when attempting to flee.
So basically just get ganged up on by a bunch of goblins.
It's funny because when I when I played yesterday, their war band
was a beast riding a beast, which was hysterical and three
goblins that were all brain dead to the guy on the beast.
But we talked about it after and he explained why that was the
War Band, because if you look at the Beast special ability, it
says enemy character models may never attempt to flee from melee
combat from a beast. So if and.
The beast movement is like 7, but if you're a writer you get
like a + 2. So it's a beast on a beast.
So we had plus he had nine movement.
And if you get the fast attributes is another plus one
so he all movement. Well, but all the goblins got
fast. So, so then so basically if he
could get the beast up to somebody and then the goblins
all there, you wouldn't be able to run from the beast.
And then if he got all the goblins around you to to give
you the three goblin debuff, you're fucked because you can't
get away. Did that work out?
We never I kill, I killed this guy before we got into basement
contact. The board is a little bit big.
I even offered at the beginning I was like, why don't we just
start like 6 inches in? They're like, no, no, let's
let's do it this way. So I think on a smaller board he
probably would have beat the shit out of me, but I was able
to with my two Archers. I'll tell you what, range is
important. Range is more important than
people think. It really is.
Yeah, I was able to shoot down my target, my my King's ransom
before we got into base space contact.
But are you guys taking? Ransom as well.
Yeah, it was just the easiest one with the board that I had.
A lot of them, the board needs to be a little different.
You need like a tower or a mushroom field or a hill or
something like that, so. Well, I downloaded a bunch of
mushroom assets yesterday, so. Yeah, yeah, My plan, like I
said, I would like to make two by two board for every scenario
and publish them all and let Della know so that anyone that
wants to play TTS can play the entire campaign on a Tabletop
simulator. That might take a little bit of
time, but but it's going anyway. Continue I.
Don't remember where I was. Yeah.
So you know you can do stuff special.
Abilities, yeah. Special abilities.
They're, they're really cool. They're all very fun.
Yeah. Then then past that.
Oh, yeah. Each of the different war band,
the member type, has a different gold cost, The cheapest being
goblins at 30 gold, the most expensive being trolls at 60
gold. And like their usefulness kind
of is, is in line with how expensive they are.
Trolls are like pretty powerful and can heal.
Goblins are you're very much guys you expect to die unless
you roll above, you know, 6 and then they're fine.
Or actually above a three. Yeah, after that you will buy
arms. Not physical arms, but you're
the arms that you weed. And legs, you know.
And legs luckily you you start with it, you can have a hand
weapon for free. So you just you have a one
handed weapon for free. A2 ended weapon bow are are both
with five gold bow just gives you range 2 ended weapon gives
you a + 1 to damage. And there's a musket that's kind
of like the more advanced range. It gives you a buff damage a
little more expensive And in a big rock is the hardest hitting
weapon is it gives you +2 damage.
It's a big rock. It's the most perfect goblin
troll weapon ever conceived. After you spend your money.
Real quick, I wanted to say I did have a clarification because
when we played yesterday, they had a big rock and we're like, I
don't know what happens when I throw the big rock.
Does big rock disappear? Is there ammo, Whatever?
I asked Dylan. Dylan said.
It's not that you necessarily have a big rock, it's your
character always has the ability to find big rocks.
So it's more of an attribute so you can throw as many big rocks
as you want. You got unlimited big rocks.
Yeah, can you throw the big rock?
Oh. It's mainly ranged.
Yeah, right. And there's no, there's no
range. Yeah, it fucks big.
Rock. Yeah, you could have banged the
shit out of me with the big rock.
My. God I did not realize it was
range. I'm dumb.
Yeah, Am I? We didn't know.
Now we know. That's how we clarify.
Now we. Know next time I throw big rock.
My favorite thing with arms list is the damage you out of a + 1
or you have like maybe a + 2. But yeah, it doesn't really
change the game a bunch. And I love that it that the
weapons don't really give you like aren't aren't game breaking
as much as the attributes are, which costs a lot more and are
much more impactful. So.
Absolutely. And that kind of gets us to the
next section. And probably we'll, we'll
probably go over a few examples because I think this is like.
This is so much. Of like your, your characters,
your attributes right? So there is a pretty large list
of attributes that I did not count.
I'm gonna be honest with you. How many?
Just widely guessing based on
the game, how many do you think there are?
I would guess 12 and there is 12.
I was like, there's fucking 12, isn't there?
As I started counting like yeah, there's 12 different attributes
and they range from very simple stuff like armored, you just
are. They have a greater defense to
truly insane things like brain dead, which is a thing that I
picked because I am also brain dead, obviously.
But yeah, these add like some utility to your character, some
flavor. They're they're they're pretty
interesting. If we were to go over one that
you picked, Ryan, and one that I picked, which one would you like
to pick? We're probably gonna have to go
over more than one, but Runty. So that's why I have for my
guys. I got this, this guy, but then I
also have this little bastard here.
I'm showing my menus for those in podcast land.
So the way Runty works is you reduce the base cost of the
character by 1/5, which is so fucking random before purchasing
any other keywords. This character is much smaller
than its counterparts, but may still be worthy in battle.
This hovers -1 to everything by being runty little guy, little
guy. But I, I picked him because I
wanted 1/3 goblin in the war band so I could trigger the
ability. But also it saved me a ton of
money because like I'm like, I'll just, I think I gave him
like fast too. So I was like, I'll make him
small, I'll make him fast. I'm not going to spend a lot of
money on him. I'm not going to give any.
I'm only going to give him the free one handed weapon.
But since he's as fast, I could have my two guys go in and have
him like run up to get that third in if he ever needed to.
But it saved me a ton of money. Like a fifth off of a goblin is
just oh, such a random number. But 1/5 of 30 is like, I don't
know. I don't know the math on that,
but it saved me enough points that I was able to buy
everything else I wanted because I started with 299 gold.
Yeah, that's a pretty good one. Now the one that I, one of the
ones I'd like to do over, I think we talked about brain dead
enough. We'll talk about brain dead.
So brain dead. So for whatever model you pick
as your brain dead one, another model must be assigned as that
model's handler at no cost. Multiple brain dead characters
may have the same handler, however, the handler itself
cannot be brain dead. If the brain dead model is ever
further than 6 inches away from its handler during the start of
its activation and not in combat, it must roll AD 12 on
the brain dead chart below, and these options range from pretty
much one through 4. You do you spend time exploring
your orifices. Is the way it says, which is
great the the five through 8 is it?
It can move, it moves its speed in the random direction and if
an encounter is another character, friend or foe, it
will attack. And then nine through 12 is
miraculously this fucking dumb ass.
I put that that's on there. Miraculously, this character has
managed to maintain some level of focus and may activate as
normal. So why would you pick this?
Because it gives you 15 extra gold.
It's actually a negative cost, just like Runty it it gives you
back gold. So you're like, OK, cool, I'll
take some brain dead. I'll have some extra gold to
spend on other stuff like armored, which gives you more
armor. Or maybe you make somebody a
shaman and they are given one random spell and they can pick
another from the great spell list.
There's also like Sneaky's a really good one.
You can't be targeted by a. By a range weapon from further
than 12 inches away how much can be a lot of the board law which.
Is which is really good for you because I, I think one of the
most important things a shooter getting that plus one to range
on the big board that we had in the game that I played after you
was was huge, but also brain dead.
You know, it definitely saves you money.
It can be goofy, but for you the 6 inch thing was kind of a big
kind of big, like only being able to be like 6 inches away
from your guy. I think in another game where I
paid attention to what models you did activate, so I didn't
move up next to one that you that I thought was activated the
ad and it would have been fine. Like, because it forced them to
move as like a swarm. And I really saw like this
goblin swarm, like, you know, like it's, it's a bunch of, you
know, goblins running out of target.
Like I expect them to be stupid. Yeah.
Yeah, I think that was the only flaw in in the other guys war
band is what's the point of having your beast be able to
move 9 if they're chained to your goblins?
I can only move 4 without being, you know, I mean out of out of
range. So you were, yeah, on a smaller
board that that, you know, works super, super well.
Tactically worked better on a smaller board for sure.
So I. Definitely want to play.
I definitely want to remake it two by two and and and run it
back and it's going to be just as fun as both times we've
already done it, which is. And my goblin survived.
By the way, I did role above getting in a permanent injury
and so that goblin still made. It.
Yeah. So I get to brag endlessly about
killing them. That's very true.
Yeah, Yeah. And so moving on from that,
those are kind of attributes and it's kind of like the, that's
the really the meat of your character.
And you'll, you have a lot of gold after you buy characters.
And so you all buy multiple. Like I think all my guys had
like 4 attributes or something. I still want money on it.
They're all they're very customizable.
Now, did you talk about heroes at all?
Oh, we didn't talk about heroes. I think is that we did.
We pass it already, I don't think.
It's it's right next to the building war band page.
Oh, is it really my bow? I totally scroll past it.
Yeah. So I don't know why I thought it
was later Heroes. Hey guess what?
If you spend 100 more gold on a hero, it is considered a hero.
And for each hero in a players war band, they may roll once on
the treasure table before the start of the campaign.
Did you do that? We weren't doing a campaign, so
I didn't. Oh, OK.
You know, if we, if we actually start a campaign, I will because
because I did have a hero. I don't think you did, did you?
No, I didn't have a hero. OK, yeah, my troll was exactly
100 points. Oh, cool cool cool cool cool.
Yeah, that's a troll. For Hero is a good one too.
Well, because you start at 60, so I might as well just throw 40
points into it, you know? Oh, maybe I did do that then
without realizing it, because if it counts the amount of gold
that it actually costs, yeah, it's.
The total cost of the character, yeah. 2030 Nope, I got to 90.
Well, that means. But if you gain 10 treasure
after last round, you can add something else to him and and.
He'll be my hero. He'll be your hero.
My hero. Yeah.
And they also affect experience gain.
Which did you go over? Experience, Ryan?
I think you did. I did, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, they also affect experience game at the end.
But yeah, you have your little like little commander guy.
Very classic skirmish or like RTS computer game strategy.
We have your hero and all the troops.
I love that. Also, I love that there's like
an RPGs aspect to this and you can have your hero through that.
Yeah. And then I opened up the wrong
document because I was looking for my what my troll was at.
Yeah. After you buy that, you do have
a chance to roll through mutations, which we actually
didn't do. Yeah, I was going to and then I
just didn't because I didn't want to kit bash.
I didn't want to kit bash a mutation.
Oh my God. Well, we'll touch spells real
quick. Spells you.
We didn't get any spells because we didn't play any shamans, but
you can take the shaman attribute and it gives you a 1
random spell, the girl form one that you choose.
The spells are again very funny. Like everything in this book.
The sense of humor is like very strong all the way through and
it is genuinely very funny. I think one of the spells that
really caught my eye was Death Belch as a character is in front
of the spellcaster in a six inch cone.
Must make a defense skill check against the total brains rule
for the casting the spell or also take three damage.
Are blinded by stomach, bile, suffering -2, and all combat
skills skill checks the remainder of the game, which is
crazy. Remainder of the game is crazy,
but also that you're just like you're just like burp throwing
up on everything around you. It just feels very goblin Y you
know it's. Feels very goblin Y and and it's
cool because you have to pick shaman but one of the things you
can do with your experience is by the ability to have spells
with non shamans but it's super expensive.
Oh, OK. How much is it?
Do you know off top of your head?
I mean I can scroll really quickly.
So for learn a spell keeping all spells previously learned is 150
experience pretty big. Pretty big considering picking
up chargers. Only 15 and the most point you
can get any time is taking out someone else's hero which is 50.
So 150 is a lot of experience to get a spell so.
Damn if you. Want a spell?
I recommend starting your war band with with a shaman, but if
you really want like that's the way to do it.
I like this option and I like it.
Cost a good model. Maybe I'll I'll spend the 10.
How much is shaman actually? I have enough for it.
I think it's 15 actually, but I don't.
Think you can add attributes after the initial role.
Really. Yeah, I mean, you could always
start with the new war Band when we play like it's not a big
deal, but I'm pretty sure it's in there that you can't add.
Actually, I think that's one of the core things is like
attributes may only be purchased for a character when they are
first hired. You're.
Right, you're right, you're right.
I do remember reading that now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you know what? Fuck you guys.
Yeah. Moving on.
Past actors, past spells. And we have mutations.
So for every member of your war band, you can rule AD 12 on an
11 or 12, you receive a rare mutation randomly.
This is like wings or extra arms.
So you can have extra weapons, do extra attack.
You have bark skin that may hurt your movement but gives you
better defense. Just another like area of
customization for your weird little mini.
I definitely want to keep playing this.
I really do like this game and I want my gobbos and trolls to get
weirder. I definitely, I definitely want
to get a campaign going, dude. And then this next section is
possibly one of the best, which is the name generation.
And it's not just a name generation.
You're not just like rolling for Jiblore, right?
It is name, descriptor, title and place.
And if you would allow me, Ryan, I'd like to read a couple of the
names that I rolled. Yeah, I would also like to do
that. Yeah, we have.
I'll read just two. We have the first one.
My troll Bill the Scum, the Rancid Bile Sage of Worm Rich
Ruin, which is a fucking crazy name.
And then another one we had was Bodek the Fool, Colwright of the
Bloodless Bog. Yeah, good ones, good ones.
It's so good. My my hero, My hero Troll is
Hoga Berg, the deathless blood right of the worm Rich Graves.
That's. A really good one too.
It's a good one. It is a good one.
And then my my orc is Grudek, the rancid muck crier of mud
clad hill. So good.
Amazing. My favorite part about this is
that feels like you have a title, you have a descriptor,
you have a place, you have all that shit and then you're just
like a piece of shit, Gabo, You know what I mean?
Like, I feel like it feels so self important.
I feel like these people are like thumping their chests like
as if people know them and it's just like, you're just a piece
of shit, Gabo. Like fuck off.
Like I love that. It's the, again, the humor
throughout this entire book is so fucking incredible.
Like it, it, it cracks me up every single fucking page, you
know? It's so good.
Yeah. I think that's that's it for
like making your orbit like that's that's that's it's.
Very super straightforward. But it feels like very fun, like
it doesn't feel overeximplified, like it feels very rich with
options. It feels like you make an
individual like creature and then you give it this fucking
ridiculous ass name like these titles and like locations
they're from. Like they're like Sue the
Royalty or Nights, you know. I mean, you made your war band
you were you made your war band live on stream like so we
streamed this on Tuesday. So if you actually want to watch
us playing the game when we play skirmish games, at least for
now, we I'm not putting them on the podcast.
I'm not putting them on YouTube because, you know, it's not
probably enjoyable content to just like, sit and watch us fuck
around. In like the way it's organized,
you know, it's more chill for. Us.
But if you want to see people actually like learning how to
play the game, like that's why I leave them up so they're on our
Twitch, you can go to youknowtwitch.com or
twitch.tv/weekly Squirrel. And we have Mech 28 up there.
We have Cauldron up there. I think we might have like maybe
one other one. I don't remember what else we
played, but most of our skirmish games are going to stay in Bods
over there. And you can actually see Hunter
roll up his entire war band live.
And it was, it was super fun. It was not, it didn't take very
long. It was super easy.
It was great. OK, so jumping into that is how
the game works. That's how War Bands works.
Jump into our likes and dislikes and this will be pretty quick
because we can jump into the metrics pretty quick after.
But So what we dislike about the game then what we like about the
game? What do I dislike about this
game? Honestly, nothing.
It fucks like, I don't have anything else to say.
Like the game itself, I have nothing to say.
I think it's fucking incredible. I think the writing's
incredible. I think the layout's incredible.
I think it's it's it's incredible all the way through.
What about you? For my note, for dislike, I put
something, I'm sure. Yeah, I've really no complaints
about this game. I really enjoyed all the way
through. Nothing feels clunky, nothing
feels out of place, nothing feels like it isn't effective at
the thing that it's trying to do.
I enjoyed this through and through.
Yeah, yeah. And then my like again, we're
going to go over the metrics that we normally do.
So So what I like about this game, the thing that I found is
I think that it is all equally good in that like we we've seen
games that have like amazing mechanic, but the arts kind of
lackluster or like, you know, really great writing.
But like, you know what I mean? Like there might be some miss
balance and things, you know, there's there's games we've
looked at that have 10 for art and four for usability.
You know what I mean? Things like that.
This game, I think is so good in all the parts of a game that
it's equally good. And I don't know if I'm
describing this really well, but like the writing is hysterical
and the layout is insane. So like every aspect of the game
is all equally really fantastic. Like we literally can't be like,
I really like this, but not really like that.
Like, and I just like how cohesively incredible this
entire thing is. Like it's, it's just.
So it's a. Super quality game, like it
really is incredible in its quality and it's a ton of fun
and I look forward to more stuff from Dellen and the rest of the
his crew, you know? Steven.
Steven, there we go. I can read from Dellen and
Steven. Yeah, I think it'd be great.
So do you have a like or is that pretty much that's it and we can
move into the? Metrics from I can read off.
I just put like a straightforward and fun rule
set, like incredible sense of humor throughout the book.
You have fantastic art and layout.
Yeah. What we just said, yeah.
What we just said so, so we're actually going to go through
and, and breakdown the game a little bit.
So we're going to look at we're going to talk about like 6
things. We're going to talk about art
and layout. We're going to talk about
usability. We're going to talk about the
rule set. We're gonna go over originality
value in five. So this actually like the review
of everything we just went over. So art and layout, I think we
just hit on it. It fucks.
It's incredible. Yeah, it's great.
Like Steve, Big Boy Game Time, if you look at any of of their
stuff, if you look at especially like the, the boss fight jeans
that they put out, which is a bunch of cool boss fight stuff
for like Mac 28 and blames of Orion and stuff.
I should go grab them. They're they're they're
incredible. You can find them on the Big Boy
Game Time's itch page, but you can also I think they might
still be available as there is a Prince from the Friendship Guild
friend shop there. You know what I have to go get?
Him. Go get him, Ryan.
Show us. We all want to see him.
I haven't seen him either, so I've seen digital.
We sit here with bated breath so.
It's coming. I'm going to go over these a
little bit more on a future episode, but these are the
original boss fight scenes from Steve here.
Let me bounce to the opening real quick so we can look at
them a little better. These are the original boss
fight scene 1Z2. Again, like you can see they're
they're incredible. There's some interview stuff
through them and everything like that.
But the Friendship Guild Friend shop also does these little
Rizzo scenes so you can get these incredible Rizzo printed
copies. Yeah.
And I love, I love the Friendship Shop because they're
like, look at like, look at this.
Like it's folded over. Like like half of it's like it's
literally just that they ran it through a stitch on the side
where there's extra stuff and they're like 5-10 bucks like.
It's literally both. Gorgeous and Indy as fuck at the
same time, because clearly they're just like, see how much
of the page is like sticking out and how it's like not even at
all. And I can tell you how much I
love that is like like not perfect.
This one's stitched, this one's stapled.
And they're they're just incredible.
They also have a lot of stuff from Daniel Simso.
So I had to snag all of those. And then I got the Scumzine from
the game that I was talking about that we'll go over this in
the future too. Anyway, Steve stuff, every bit
of fucking layout that he does is so fucking incredible.
And I think Cauldron is like the peak of that.
Like it's it is it is amazing. I mean, obviously we've been
flipping through. Anyone that's been watching can
just see how incredible it is. So art and layout beautiful
readable list incredible. Your thoughts?
I have nothing to add to this. Yes, everything you just said.
It Fox No. No this whole time.
Yeah. So I think the only one of these
metrics that's really going to have critique I think is going
to be usability. We're not going to score this
like we we score a lot of teach RBGS.
If we did, it would be not high because I think the book is put
together extremely well. Like the reading order is great,
like the way they break it down, like the getting started
section, which tells you what you need in the war band and the
playing the game section leading into the after the bloodshed
section. There's nothing in the game that
I think it could be moved around at all.
I think it's put together in such a a way that flows
incredibly well, is easy to understand, is laid out in a way
that's easy to understand. It's great.
Like it no real notes is do you agree?
I completely agree with that, yes.
Perfect. So I think then and this is
mostly a digital thing is which. We did play this digitally,
yeah. Well, and also it was a while
between the 1st and 2nd print run, so a lot of people look at
it digitally, but there's definitely some usability and
accessibility issues in that, you know, it's a weekly scroll,
so there's no hyperlinks, which in APDF is really important.
So there's also no bookmarks, which in APDF again is really
important. But I think one of the things
that I found is like try to highlight some text on the PDF.
Oh, I can because I'm in Google. Because I'm opening up in Google
Chrome. Gotcha so I'm not so in Adobe
and most PDF readers every page is like a whole image.
So I'm curious if so you can't do like a control F to find
things in it. And if, if I can't grab text,
that means I don't think screen readers can grab text.
So as an accessibility thing, I think it would be really
difficult, if maybe not possible at all for people with, you
know, visual issues are quite screen readers to read this if
they can't pull the text out of it.
So I think would be really great is a plain text version would
be, would be really great just for just for an accessibility,
just for accessibility issues. And then obviously, like, you
know, hyperlinks and, and, and at the very least hyperlinks,
you know, bookmarks can be, you know, whatever.
I also for, for those that are wondering, yes, my, my little
game is hyperlinked to fuck and has bookmarks.
But that, that's really my biggest critique of this,
honestly, that that's it. And I think it's the biggest one
we're going to find is I wish I had hyperlinks and I hope that
screen readers are able to use it.
And if not, then there's just an accessibility issue that I think
could be addressed relatively easily, but that's about it.
What are your thoughts on the usability about the same this?
Is going to be one of those episodes where I just don't have
a lot to add. I mean, like, I feel the same as
you. Like, I going through this book
is in the perfect order. Things are where I expect them
to be. But yeah, like having to scroll
for everything when we need to reference something is kind of a
pain. And like, even for me, like when
I play games in person or even scrubbish games with my friends
in person, I use my iPad a lot. So you know, I need to be able
to. Get easier.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's been it.
Rule set. I literally wrote fucks, period.
It's so clean and easy, but doesn't feel like anything is
lacking. I said this in the beginning, I
think that this is a perfect intro game in that it is
extremely approachable, but also good for well beyond intro.
And that the depth bro with with with just those 12 attributes,
the number of different combinations you can have for
your four different guy, Fucking endless, fucking endless.
And I love like Destiny one when you could actually like do like
cool builds for a guy and figure out what synergistic and what's
not synergistic and stuff. That's what this feels like.
I feel like there's definitely ways you can combine some of
those attributes to really get something fun and interesting
and then mix that with some of the stuff you forage and it's
it's, you know, endless options and and ways to do things.
So I I'm such a huge fan. I love that it's D twelves all
the way through. I think the the the actions you
can take with just your two two actions on your activation is
incredible. Like it's just it's fun.
It's super easy. There was never a time where we
were like, wait, how does this work?
Because it's like it works like you think it does.
You know what I mean? Like that's yeah.
So I think, I think it's incredible.
I had so much fun both times I played.
I did too. I I really, truly enjoyed this.
Yeah, it was. It was a blast when we played.
Yeah. What are your thoughts on the
rule set? Yeah, I mean, you know, kind of
just going back over. They're easy to pick up, fun to
interact with. Like, once again, I love
foraging, I love the hero like aspect.
I love the continuous like RPG of this skirmish game.
It was just fun to play. Yeah, yeah, I think it's great.
Yeah, it's real good. Yeah, it's real good.
It's really fantastic. All right, Originality.
I mean, it's a swamp skirmish game.
Like I feel like there's not a lot of swamp skirmish games out
there. And mechanically it just uses
the D12's, which I think is cool as fuck.
Like there's not a lot of games out there that just go fuck it.
I'm just using the D12. And, and I love it.
And I mean, combine that with the layout, which honestly some
of the best layout in tabletop period, TWG, skirmish, whatever.
Like this is one of the most beautiful books I've ever picked
up. I think it's fucking incredible.
So throw that in to some of the originality stuff.
I mean, the writing like things like the pickled foot, you know,
and like the ego death from a mushroom and stuff I think is
incredible. There's the shit in here that
you just don't see in other games and it's so well done all
the way through. Very enjoyable. 10 out of 10.
A million out of a million. You know, there you go.
Value wise. So the PDF on the itch is $5,
which I think is a fucking steal.
I think that's incredible. But also, I mean, love, love
them for that. Like, just play the fucking
game. Yeah, if they're making a couple
bucks, that's cool, but the game is go so fucking hard.
And then the physical book is $25, which I think is just fine.
I think it's still. Incredibly reasonable.
Yeah, super reasonable. I mean, the book is, what is it
like? All color well.
It's 100 pages. Pages, yeah. 25 bucks is great.
I don't know if you get the PDF if you buy the book, but I know
it's only $5 more. So it's $30 to get the entire
game PDF invisible, which I think is a great fucking deal.
But honestly, just APDF alone for 5 bucks is is insane.
And then there's also a bunch of free content too.
Like if you go, there's like a microzine, there's a a big
expansion for it. There's free character sheets.
Obviously there's a bunch of stuff for free.
Obviously, like pay what you want on on the hill trying H
page. So there's more than what we've
gone over. There's a lot more actually than
what we've gone over. I started looking at it earlier
today and, and it'd be really cool to see a future Zine
expansion where they put like the microzine or they put like
the expanding content out as a, as supplemental stuff.
And that would that would be dope as shit.
But yeah, 30 bucks total for the entire thing and only $5 to the
PDF is, is a fucking steal. So value wise this is one of the
funnest games I've played for 5 bucks, you know what I mean?
For five bucks, this is like endlessly fun.
I mean, even if you only play the 12 different scenarios in
this and you don't play, I'm like, that's worth way more than
5 bucks to me, you know? It's I got more than 5 bucks out
of the one time that we played. Like it's just crazy.
Like it's crazy. It's so good.
So I want the title of the microzine which is.
I played a round of Cauldron and all I got was this shitty
microzine. Yeah, yeah, it's all incredible.
What's the name of the supplement?
Again, it is because. I think it's one of the magic
items. Tome of Flodimticus the
Fortified. Yeah, so #8 on the magic item is
the skull of Blub A Dumicus the Fortified.
So there's like a link between the expansion scene and a magic
item in the book? Love the Dumkus, got it.
Yeah, Flub, didn't you get that? Didn't you roll and get a magic
item? I did what did, what did I get?
I think you got. I think you.
Got I think you got flub the Dumkus fortified.
That's why I remembered it when I saw the name of the the thing.
Hey, I'm. Just like that, you know?
Maybe you did, or maybe, maybe, maybe the guy did yesterday.
I don't remember. Somebody got it and it is cool.
The last thing we're going to talk about is the vibes, which
are fucking Immaculate. Like, Oh yeah, half the people
that hopped in this chat, the first thing they said was holy
shit, this book looks fucking good.
You know what I mean? Like it?
Goes beyond just how it looks like it the humor in it.
There are these also we can talk about.
There's like these little excerpts that you go through
that you can read. They're of the Cauldron world.
Like it really reinforces this the the weird trash goblin in a
swamp vibe this game has, you know?
Yeah, yeah. And that's one thing I want
people to realize. And that's why I said with my
like is like flipping through this, you're going to say, holy
shit, this looks incredible. And then you read it and you go,
holy shit. It's written just as well.
Like it's so it's so good. Like Steve and Ellen.
Clearly like Hill Giant as a collaboration.
Yeah. Insane because they're both like
incredible because again, eternal is something that Dylan
works on too, which is an incredible fucking game too.
But but these two together, this is not fair to anybody else.
Like, not that it's a competition, but if it was like,
this is so good, it's so fucking good.
It's fun that this is our first review back in a while and the
first game we do, I'm just like, oh shit, this is it's good all
the way through. Like it really is.
It's incredible. First play it again So.
Yeah, I again, we said this at the top like I I get outside of
some the some some PDF stuff, right?
Yeah, this is fucking, this is so fucking good.
Like, I mean, I don't know if we're going to talk about some
scrimmage stuff compared to teach RPG stuff when we do our
year interview or whatever. But like this, the soon as I
finish reading this, this was in competition for game of the year
from period across all tabletop like and unquestionably like, I
can't even remember what else we reviewed Like this.
This took up everything in my brain.
It's. It's so good.
I want to play. I think I am playing again.
I might be playing again. I might be doing either Cauldron
or Necropolis next week, but. Oh yeah, I got time for a game
next week too, so you know, on the board.
We'll have to well, if if that's the case, I'm going to get my 2
by two board made on table dot simulator.
Yeah, but anybody out there again, we're going to be talking
about skirmish a lot more coming up.
So you know what they're listening.
Don't forget we have a discord server and I have a war games
channel. And if you want to hop in, play
some tabletop stuff, like I'm always down to, to, to play, to
chat, to chill. And, and Cauldron is one that
honestly, it's so easy to pick up.
Like it's not you can build a war brand in like 1520 minutes
tops and be and be up and moving and literally all you have to
know is, oh, here's my list of actions.
I get to cool. And then you're good to fucking
go. Like, it's, it's great.
It's I again, like I want to say no notes, but like PDF stuff.
But like other than that, my God.
Other than that though, you know.
It's the back is right. You will love it.
I love it. You will.
I can't think of another word besides just love for this.
It's so fucking good and that's I mean, you got anything else to
say? I think that's kind of it.
This game fucks like super hard. Like so hard.
Let me just note that we were talking about the scenarios and
stuff, but the inscrutable Tome of Flub did dump kiss the
fortified. I think it it says it contains
50 brand new options for scenarios, spells, characters
and other stuff. So like what's in the book?
There's even more for a thing. It's like download name your own
price. I'm like, it's a well supported
game and I I'm into it. Yeah, yeah, I really hope I,
like I said, I would love to see a print run of the of the
expanded content. You know, I will harass Dylan
until it happens. I'll fucking pay for it if I
need to. But it can be a midnight oil
production, you know. But it's, it's good.
Find it, find it again for those listening, We'll, we'll, we'll
make sure the links are down below.
But you can find it again digitally at
hillgiant.h.ioandandinprintrightnowuntilitrunsout@hillgiant.bigcartel.com. And that's our review of the
game. We're not going to do scores.
If we did like it, like it fucks, it fucks super hard.
It'd be like 10510 ten, 10/10/10, you know, like it it.
It's really great. Coming up on the show.
We are at episode, I don't remember, 297 or 298, doesn't
fucking matter. This will be 298.
I believe so. OK, we're going to have maybe
one more episode. Remind me to talk to you about
that. And and then we're going to do
episode 300, which is going to be our last episode of maybe not
of the year, but our, it is also going to be our year interview,
which we've done every year and that'll be towards the end of
December, which means it probably over the last episode
of the year. So, and then as we do, like I
said, at the top, every year, we're going to tweak the show a
little bit. And I'm not going to, you know,
I'm not going to say anything about that.
You'll hear about it at the end of episode 300.
So had a lot of interviews lately.
Make sure you go check those out.
We talked to Stella or I, I talked to Stella, I talked to CJ
from from Glave Magazine. Make sure you definitely go
check that. Out, you know.
Yeah, the royal we talked to to Joey Royale.
There's been a lot of really amazing people on the show
recently and and that's going to continue into into the new year.
So I think I think that's all we got.
I think we this look at the time on that episode, that was a
fucking. Good one look at.
That and I think, I think, I think, I mean, we're not doing
scores on this game. So we save 20 minutes of
bullshit and whether it's a six or seven, you know which is, you
know, which is the thing. But how dare you?
How dare you do that, old man? It was, it was in.
It was irony. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But but that's it. Again, thank you all for being
here. Catch us twice more this year
and make sure you go check out all of our previous episodes.
And Hunter, it was it was wonderful to do a review with
you again. It's been too long.
And man, that that beard is you're, you're getting it,
buddy. Yeah.
Right, we will catch you all next time.
Bye everybody.