Hardware Review: Chessex Figure Storage Box

I have a lot of figures, ok maybe more than a lot, let's just say figures are plentiful in the Samoht camp. Normally I'll buy a piece or two of battlefoam that will fit in a box and call it a day. But this time I found something on my radar. Something affordable, enclosed, and loaded with foam.

Chessex, a company I stopped buying dice from decades ago, makes figures cases. at 29.99 in my FLGS, I decided to spring on it, as most battlefoam pieces are around the $20 mark there. I picked up the 56 figure box. First off I can't help but enjoy the old school GW Heroquest, Warhammer Fantasy, and 40k figures displayed. Yes, I know I don't get those fine figures, but does it look cool seeing them on a product in 2017? A resounding "YES!" is the only thing I can reply.

Look at the Majesty!

Pulling the shrinkwrap off reveled a hard plastic box. It's quite plain, but it's VERY sturdy.

It has been undressed!

Opening the box was a bit irritating. It's molded and not a latch. Far too much effort was put into opening and closing this thing. Hopefully it can be broken in a bit. After opening it I found the sweet, sweet foam. It's in six pieces of foam. A bottom solid sheet, a middle pluck sheet the creates the spaces for the figures, and a top sheet of foam. The top and bottom figure trays are separated by a chipboard divider. The foam figure dividers are really wobbly, but once set down, it's not terrible. the foam also had one weird smell....

Keep the pluck foam bits. Useful for making more storage!

My figures aren't true 25mm. Most 1" figures have slowly gone up in scale, but the chessex case holds most of them well. I used metal figures, Reaper bones, converted Mage Knight figs, and Wizkids D&D and pathfinder figs. One Reaper bones fig was too big with a sword but the rest of the 56 figs held up well. Although I don't like the force needed to close the box with figures in it.

3/5 Electrum!
All this thing needs is a handle and latches to be perfect.

MYFAROG: Weird Name, Bad Game

This is up there with the worst RPG's I've read. I'm still processing this thing after reading it.

I had such interest when this photo was taken

MYFAROG stands for "Mythic Fantasy Role-Playing Game." It's both a system and a campaign setting rolled into one. Let's delve into the good and the bad.

I want to start with the positives. Scattered throughout the book are these quotes and phrases. Some I have certainly heard before, others not so much. I think some are quite interesting. They can make for great lines NPC's and villains can say to a group of adventurers. Another great thing is there's an appendix with very interesting sounding names of people and places. Lastly, the cover has a striking look to it that while simple, pulls the eye with the black and white contrast and very brilliant dragon. The fluff can be great at times, I think Thule(Not to be confused with Primeval Thule by Sasquatch Game Studio) could be an interesting setting based on real world mythology if conveyed better.

Now, let's start the bad....
The copy I ordered from Amazon had two pieces of art. The cover, and the deities' symbols. 161 pages with a dragon on a cover and symbols on one page. Without art this book is a dry, monotonous read with nothing to stop and say "that looks neat." Great art in an RPG makes a world come alive, good art helps break up long periods of rules and how to use them, Bad art can at least be fun and sometimes iconic. No art is just dull and lifeless. There's also a typo saying there's an included poster map, there's not in this amazon printed edition.

The formatting and layout are not great by any stretch. Tables and charts are heavily littered throughout and grey text boxes poke out on almost every page. There's so much content to take in. Within the book, the author suggests playing the game with less rules. It's nothing new, but even then it's hard to figure out what is and isn't a core principle rule that the game relies on, since the book's chapters aren't very well formatted. It feels like I'm reading a beta with fluff thrown in. The writing has an air of pretentiousness and the game is filled with acronyms whose meanings are littered somewhere else, hopefully nearby in the text. The rules seem more complex than they really are which makes it feel like it's simply poorly conveyed.

Onto PC's. There's 5 playable races but 8 in total. 3 are meant as NPC's and are limited in some degree for campaign setting reasons. I think this, mechanically speaking, is where the game itself turns me off. I can understand wanting to fit these specific niches within a campaign setting, but it limits what players can be. The races themselves also seem very bland and almost indifferent. It swings between the Humans(Natives), types of elves(Elf-Born, Wood Elf), and some kind of supernatural godly humanoid (God born & Fairling). It's very samey. I understand this is based on mythology but it just kind of fails at impressing me with the races and the real lack of diversity and options. The Classes, called Character Roles, appear interesting and different but really are versions of the classics. I do like the Character Role fluff, although it limits things.

Onto the last part, Monsters. On a side note, there's a Men & Monsters supplement. I made the mistake of not reading the amazon description. Men & Monsters is literally the Monsters segment of the core book. It's kind of useful considering the poor formatting but not what I expected from a supplement. I thought it'd be more monsters. There's pretty standard fare, but some monsters have been renamed for fluff reasons. Dragons are called worms. This bothered me because I was trying to find dragons. Without artwork, I saw worm and thought 'worm'. Some monsters get a paragraph or two(Sometimes even more) describing the monster, the Hyaenodon gets one sentence. There's a lack of consistency and it's just a disappointment to see and irritating to read.

I personally cannot recommend MYFAROG. But if anything in here sounds awesome You can find it on Amazon. I really think the setting could be it's own book, maybe a system agnostic setting, or even a setting for another game system. But as it is, I cannot recommend this game.
1/5 Copper!
Pros:

• Interesting Setting
• Interesting Quotes
• Good Looking Cover

Cons:

• Incredibly Poor Format and Layout
• Dull, Uninteresting Races and Classes
• Lack of Artwork

White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game review.

White Box:Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game is a re-done version of Swords & Wizardry: White Box, a game I've never messed with or own. I'm going to give an objective review of White Box as it's own game, I've no clue if something I like or dislike will be in or out of the original Swords & Wizardry: White Box.

White Box, how something cool can be in a small package.

White Box is a game that despite a few nitpicks and groans, I think is a wonderful game especially at shops or cons. I love the majority of it, but there's a few things that just bug me and keep me from giving it a perfect score.

The first thing I loved about White Box was the size of the thing. It's a compact 140 page rule set that's digest sized. Not only is it small and compact, the font is a good size to read for those of us with bad eyes. I mean compared to a full sized paperback of Basic Fantasy it is small.

So tiny and yet READABLE

This makes it great for running a game on the go. This book, some paper, pencils and dice and you are off to the races. As stated before the font size is very readable and the layout is simple and very easy to read. I really enjoy the art in this book. It has this coherency that makes it have both an iconic look like older RPG's and a feeling of a predefined world within the game. The art is truly excellent!

Now onto the nitpicking.

The default Skill Attributes are BRUTAL. Having a modifier in the default in the default system is incredibly rare. On a 3d6, a 3-6 means a -1 modifier and a 15-18 means a +1 modifier. Throughout the book it's heavily suggested you can change or modify any part of the game that you want, but there's a quick cutoff point when rules might require changes before the 10th page of the book.

Within the game itself there are 4 classes and four and a half races. Your standard cleric/fighter/thief/magic-user are there but thief is listed as an optional class. I guess that's for people wanting to emulate pre-Greyhawk OD&D, but it seemed silly to add optional to an iconic class like that. Each class gets just ONE saving throw. I like this, a lot. They have a matrix based on older D&D concurrent with the single throw, but the one throw is just amazing. That stood out as a mechanic I enjoyed and want to use more.

Onto the  races, there's Dwarf, Elf, an Elf variant, and Halfling. Each has a mix of bonuses and limitations namely class and level restrictions.. Human isn't listed because if you pick human, you don't pick a race which I felt needed to be more clear within the book. Human just can play whatever without getting any bonuses. I'm not the biggest fan of level restrictions, but the nonhuman races do get some neat abilities so it feels somewhat balanced out. The Elf Variant seemed far better than the standard elf. The standard elf could change between fighter and magic user class each day. The variant is just both magic user and fighter with more XP required to level up.

Weapons and equipment are ok, with the exception that weapons all do 1d6 with either a +1 or -1 modifier. Just a big irritant right there. So far there's 2 house rules to get this game really perfect for me. Variable weapon damage would just make more sense. Combat is very simple roll to break AC.

In magic, I found out the magic user is feeble in this game. There's no damage spells for a magic user until they can access 3rd level magic which is at 5th level. There is no magic missile in this game, no real way for a wizard to defend themselves beyond a dagger until that point.

The rest in the book is great for DMs/GMs with all the tools required. The monster list is solid and the system supports both an ascending AC and Descending AC so you can use either in your game to expand upon it although you should just stick to one style of AC for coherency within a game. In the back is a House rules page you can use to keep the game more to your flavor if you don't mind writing in a book.

White Box is compatible with Swords & Wizardry products according to the book cover. You can find White Box on rpgnow as a PDF or print with varying prices and on amazon as a $7 softcover. The amazon price is amazing and I still suggest you buy this book despite my complaints. There aren't many digest sized games that are this good and at this price.

Rating: 3/5 Electrum!
Pros

• Small lightweight easy to carry book while having everything needed for play inside
• Amazing artwork and an easy to read layout
• Easy to plug in house rules
• Single saving throw is a great mechanic.

Cons

• Too reliant on houserules to fill in the gaps
• The wizard is nigh defenseless until later levels