The Hunger Games

Recently I read a book by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games is set in a future after a global catastrophe (I think it was a flood...). Anyways, an oppressive government known as the Capitol has taken control of North America, now called Panem. The situation is equivalent to the prerevolutionary France. The Capitol city is spoiled with riches, while the outlying 12 Districts under its control suffer and starve. 74 years ago, when the 13 Distrcits launched civil war on the Capitol they were defeated. District 13, the leader, was completely destroyed. This also led to the start of the Hunger Games. The Capitol requires aboy and girl from each District between ages 12 and 18 go to an arena, where its last one standing.

Short review: The book was good, had a 'To Be Continued' ending that really killed the ending.

Long review: The book is of medium length, 374 pages (I kept telling my English teacher I was on page 375, wow was she confused). The author builds a great mental picture of the suffering these people live in through Katniss, a girl from District 12. The book had some great combat scene potential, but that was squandered by the author trying to make it for teens. I didn't really like the romance between the two kids from District 12, Peeta and Katniss. Katniss was playing the love story to keep people sponsoring them. Unknown to her, Peeta really was in love. I guess that might be in there so girls like it... Meh.

So my point for posting this is this: how can you build a campaign setting from this? Or maybe just an adventure? Obviously, the government would be easy to replicate into a fantasy setting. The Games part, would have to be modified. Because the story is set in the future they have things such as hovercrafts to take the corpses out of the arena. Also, the audience watches with cameras because the arena is something like 5 miles diameter. They also show with a projector in the sky which competitors were killed.

So I'm thinking if you wanted to contain the whole thing to the city, you could have a walled city where poverty runs rampant, that surrounds a rich city on the inside. The Capitol would have a Roman Colosseum inside? Maybe entering the Hunger Games would be under different terms. Like criminals have to fight in the arena. Maybe breaking the cities strict customs would lead you to the Games. Customs that the PCs wouldn't know about.

Boar Boyz Heroscape Stats

OK, gave some thought to this and looked at past cavalry type units such as the Grok Riders and Knights. So here they are:

Boar Boyz

Utgar

Orc

Common Squad 3

Warriors

Wild

Large 5

Life 1

Move 7

Range 1

Attack 4

Defense 3

Points 110?

Special Powers:

Tusker Charge- A Boar Boy receives an additional attack die when attacking any figure that was at least 4 clear sight spaces away from that Boar Boy at the start of his turn.

Rally- When a Boar Boy attacks, you may also make a normal attack with an adjacent friendly orc squad figure.

This should make a nice addition to the orc horde! I think I might just buy these because of these stats. I didn't use the Templar Cavalry Galloping Charge because I figured: 1) boars don't gallop, 2) the boar boyz have battleaxes not lances. Going with this I figured that they should do more normal damage per turn, but not get as high of a bonus from the charge. I threw Rally in there because a cavalry charge generally raises army morale.

Happy Scaping,

- ssnover95

Orcz and Trollz

Yesterday, GW released the anticipated River Trolls, and also some orc cavalry and heavy melee troops. And as usual I cannot afford these new figures.

But for those of you who may have obtained them one way or another, I guess I'll make some Heroscape stats for them.

River Troll

Utgar

Troll

Uncommon Hero

Marauder

Terrifying

Large 9

Life- 4

Move- 4

Range- 2

Attack- 6

Defense- 3

Points- X140?

Special Powers:

Regenerate

Threatening Reach

Aquatic

There, they can swim, have a little bit of range from those giant swords they have, and regenerate like any other troll.

I'll post some Boar Boyz stats later.

New Mini Total

It occurred to me this morning that I hadn't taken a look at the size of my collection in a while so I made a list. All included I have 255 miniatures ready to play from 5 different miniature games. I have more from Digimon and other random toy manufacturers, but I can't their names...

My recent minis I recieved from lefton4ya were a DDM Spectral Magelord, 2 Heroscape Greater Ice Elementals, an Air Elemental, and a Water Elemental from the Champions of the Forgotten Realms.

Also, a shout out to Soundwarp SG-1's Soundwarp Space, in 'My Links' off to the side!

Upcoming DDMs

Recently looked at http://www.ddmspoilers.com/ and saw that there was a major update on Lords of Madness and the Castle Ravenloft board game.

For Lords of Madness, it looks like they got a hold of some pictures of the box sides. Seems we are gonna get a sweet volcanic dragon, a swordwing, and a heroslayer hydra. Those are figures I will definitely be looking forward to buying, my birthday is in July!

For Castle Ravenloft, we are getting a possible rerelease of quite a few figures, especially kobolds. I've had my eye on that huge dracolich for a while, that will be one I'll buy single probably on the first day of release or prior. Other than the figures the board game looks nice, except maybe the price. I will probably just buy singles from this set and maybe find out if someone else will let me borrow the adventure.