There’s been a long silence on my blog, but after a busy period, I’m back with some good stuff. Fighting Fantasy 3 was a lot of fun back in 2019, but this time it was not just a simple event. In September 2022 it was the celebration of the 40th anniversary of publishing the book that started everything: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. The ticket was pricey, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime event and it was also within walking distance from home, so it was absolutely worth it.
Continue reading Fighting Fantasy Fest 4 – The 40th AnniversaryTag: Fighting Fantasy
Autumn Haul Report 2020 – aka The Treasure Hunt – Tranche 3
Not much has changed since the last haul report: there have been no face to face games and no wargame shows either but apparently, this didn’t stop me from buying new stuff.
The first item, TravelBattle from Perry Miniatures, was a real surprise. Though it’s a very interesting period, I have never considered buying Napoleonic minis and I was also sure that I would focus on 28mm and 15mm, with a few 6mm pieces as a rare exception, but after reading an article about this game, it looked very engaging. One single box that has everything you need: terrain boards, troops and a rulebook. After reading a few reviews, it quickly became irresistible, mainly because of the quick and simple but fun to play rules. The size of the minis is 8mm, which is a scale I have never seen before and there are probably not too many accessories for it on the market, which is in a way a blessing in disguise: it will stop me from expanding this into a massive collection with dozens of extra units.
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Summer Haul Report 2020 – aka The Treasure Hunt Goes On
This quarter has been busier than expected, practically I haven’t painted anything but have luckily had very good RPG (Cepheus Light and D&D) and wargame (Stargrunt II) sessions. COVID-19 is still around, so there was no wargame show to report about and the games I played were online, not face to face. But there is something reassuring about buying hobby stuff. This time it wasn’t panic buying like it was in the spring, but a more methodical one.
Let’s start with Patrick Todoroff’s Hardwired rulebook and The Tsim Sha Tsui expansion: these are both short, fifty-page black and white booklets with a bit of background, complete rules, list of equipment and a handful of missions for cybernetically enhanced agents. Sounds familiar? There’s a good reason: Syndicate, the old PC game was one of the inspirations for this game. The subtitle “Cyberpunk espionage and mayhem” refers to a cyberpunk setting, but it’s very adaptable – you can swap the agents with a black ops team, a commando unit, a squad of mercenaries, a recon or a SWAT team and swap the opposing security forces to insurgents, alien bugs, zombies, rogue AI robots, vicious gangs, or your favourite villains.
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Assassins of Allansia: Hungarian Edition – Review and Comparison with the Original
I received a copy of the Hungarian edition of Assassins of Allansia from Chameleon Comix for review a few months ago. It is a very neatly designed book, with the look and feel of the classic softcover Fighting Fantasy series, using the same artwork that’s visible on the hardcover edition. It immediately triggered a wave of nostalgia in me.
But why did it took me so long to write this review? Reading Fighting Fantasy books was one of my treasured childhood memories and I got paralyzed, and started wondering if I still enjoy them as much as I used to. Are they still as good as I remember they used to be? Does this book meet the standards that I expect, or is it just exploiting nostalgia? Luckily, I had no reason to worry: twentyfive years have passed since I last read an FF book and this was just as immersive and gripping as I remembered.
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Fighting Fantasy Fest 3
There are things in life that influence you: books you read, movies you watch, and people you become friends with. Some of these are just short impressions, while some of them have a long lasting effect and might even become an important part of your life.
Fighting Fantasy was published in Hungary in 1989, starting with “Deathtrap Dungeon”, “The Warlock of Firetop Mountain” and “Freeway Fighter”.
Little did I know then that these books would inflame a new passion of mine. I was still in primary school and my classmates were talking about these new books that you can play. A book you can play? It just didn’t make any sense, but when I opened one of them, everything was clear. After reading the first few pages, there was no turning back: I became a fan of Fighting Fantasy.
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