Game Review - Home Worlds

Title: Home Worlds
Publisher: Looney Labs
Designer: John Cooper
Artist:  OTHER Studio
Year: 2020
Pages: 32
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first page of the instruction sheet sums it up: "What Chess is to medieval warfare, Homeworlds is to Star Trek and Star Wars." 

Yup. 

This game is fascinating. You're off to fight an interstellar war against an opponent, manage resources, planets and ships with just 4 types of game pieces. Insane, but it works. This is one of many games by Looney Labs which use the Looney Pyramids. The game includes 36 pyramids of differing sizes and colors, a board for the bank, the rule book and a token to indicate which player's turn it is. 

Star Systems are indicated by an upright pyramid. Ships are indicated by a pyramid lying on it's side, your ships a;ways point away from you. Enemy ships point towards you. When a system is explored, a new upright pyramid is placed from the bank. When all ships leave a system, that planet is placed back in the bank. 

Movement is simple. You can only move to stars of different sizes. Stars of the same size are not connected and travel is blocked. A binary star, two stars in one system is connected to stars that do not match either of the two star sizes. 

Each player picks a color and builds their home world with a binary star and one large ship. The colors you choose at the start of the game controls your choices later on, so choose carefully. All of a sudden, your opening choices create puzzles to be solved by you. Color and size of the play pieces represent different options and limitations. 

Players choose from a Basic Action, a Sacrifice action which puts a pyramid back in the bank or a "pass". Passing your turn isn't optimal at the start but I am told that no action might be the best option later in the game. There is a forced action called a Catastrophe when the players place 4 of the same color pieces in the same star system. 

Each color means something: 

Green=Build
Red=Fight
Yellow=Move
Blue=Trade

Pretty simple? No. 

Size also determines what each piece can do. It all gets very complex very fast. 

These simple rules create a very rich system of game play. One of the nicer aspects of the game is it assumes loopholes in the rules will allow a player to create actual logical loops in play which may seem like cheating, but are merely built in options which may or may not be useful based on the pieces in play. This also makes the bank behave as a "third actor" in a two person game. What is in the bank creates or limits options. 

There are 3 win options, destroy all of your enemy's ships, destroy his or her home world or force your opponent into causing a Catastrophe in their home system. There are also a draw  and deadlock conditions which result in a tie. 

I've only played 10 or 20 times and not always to completion, but the rule set is so ingenious, it keeps pulling me back for more. I really want to master this system and Home Worlds. 

Models Bandai 002 X Wing Starfighter 1:144 Scale - 001

My first go at documenting the build process for the Bandai 002 X Wing Starfighter in 1:144 Scale. 

These models are remarkably tiny and detailed. The beauty of these things are the plastic quality is high as is the craftsmanship. The sprues are designed in such a way that after trimming, there is very little sanding or smoothing. 

Every part is so tiny. But Bandai designed these kits with keyed parts. The keys prevent you from placing the wrong piece in the wrong place. One word of warning. If you dry fit some of the pieces, they are very, very hard to get apart. Just skip dry fitting. 

I'm decades out of practice, so mistakes were made. I'll detail those last. 

1 / 11

Laying out the first wing

2 / 11

Engine detail

3 / 11

The mess

4 / 11

Wing with one engine

5 / 11

Second engine

6 / 11

Wing 2 with both engines

7 / 11

Wings ready

8 / 11

The X in X-Wing

9 / 11

Close S-foils

10 / 11

Main body

11 / 11

Done!

❮ ❮Back Forward❯ ❯

A few details were hard to work on. Those two wings snap together on a pivoting hinge. It requires a lot of force on a tiny model. I found I couldn't do it with my hands and no tool seemed correct. I end up using a pencil sharpener by lining up the hole in the sharpener with the center of the hinge and pressing down hard. 

It worked so well that I added that little sharpener to my tool box. 

Now, the mistake. 

This image should have been a clue. That pivoting hinge runs down the back half of the main body. Somehow, I missed getting the hinge in the back hole which supports it. It felt right. 

Yeah, no. As you can see the wings don't close. Nor do they open all the way. They have a springy feel to them and the right side engine naucell presses against the side of the body. Taking pictures at a jaunty angle hides the mistake, but I'm going to give this model another go. 

(I might try the freezing technique to break the glue and refit it. We'll see.) 

Books by Mike and Shell Dibaggio

For the longest time, I have run a side panel ad for Dibaggio's book, The Ascension Epoch series. I'm doing a refresh of the blog and moving them here. Very shortly, I will be running reviews as many of them as I can. So moved but not forgotten. 

As of this moment, I'm spending a lot of time trying to get the garden complete so reviews are momentarily on hold. I can't wait for this brief burst of lawn activity to be done so I can get back to reading and blogging. 

Be sure to check out these and all of the other great titles by Mike and Shell Dibaggio at your favorite retailer.

Books by Rick Wayne

For the longest time, I have run a side panel ad for Rick's books, The Minus Faction and Feast of Shadow series. I'm doing a refresh of the blog and moving them here.

Very shortly, I will be running reviews of all 8 of them.  So moved but not forgotten. 

As of this moment, I'm spending a lot of time trying to get the garden complete so reviews are momentarily on hold. I can't wait for this brief burst of lawn activity to be done so I can get back to reading and blogging. 

Be sure to check out these and all of the other great titles by Rick Wayne at your favorite book store.

No time. No time!

Time is short today. I prepped the lawnmower, filled the raise beds and stopped at Dragon Snack Games.

It's gorgeous out today, so I'm staying outside. 

I found a great deal on a lawnmower and with the money I saved, I dropped it all on some gaming products. The chance score were dice for 3 bucks a set. 

I love the way the look outside. Nice for pictures this summer. 

The zucchini and cucumbers are almost ready to plant. I also picked up some tomatoes and peppers. It's kind of late for those, so maybe I'll grow them inside. I don't know. We'll see. 

Inspiration

When I was 10 or 12, Dungeons and Dragons was a big thing but the content was fairly limited. Not just the sheer number of modules, but the tone and such were limited by the player's personal preferences. Out of dozens choices only a handful leave an impression. Face it, it's really a chocolate, vanilla or strawberry choice. We like what we like for no other reason. 

This creates a cycle were the player was introduced to the module, then they presented the module as a DM to replay. The story gains additional replayability through this introducing it to others. I can repeat by placing a twist on the source material so that it is disguised. By the time you have your own kids, you see the cycle start again. It is very much like some beloved concept such as drawing, woodworking, camping, Disney, etc. to be passed down.  

The activity is the same, but different depending on where you are in the cycle. This naturally leads to the idea of maps, guides, handbooks, t-shirts. I find it amusing that there could or would be some sort of insignia, brochure or mission patch for an old module because the are simply loved and repeated. 

That is the source of inspiration for these images and my love of the OSR. 

The difference between 6 and 10 is not very great in terms of time, so I recall my bedroom decorated with classic Disney posters, 60's and 70's baseball pennants and other object de art which were done in these odd colors and styles. It's no wonder that I have associate these images with those conjured by D&D.