TheAgencyStar

THEAGENCYSTAR CAFE PRESS STORE

Play your games in style!

For those of you that did not know, TheAgencyStar has its own Café Press shop filled with all sorts of T-Shirts and other apparel. I myself am proud to walk around into my local gaming stores wearing my “Just A Die Away” T-Shirt and sporting my “Never Trust Your Contact” buttons on my game bag. There are other items also available like cups and mugs, e-reader sleeves and vehicle accessories. So if you like TheAgencyStar and want to help support our organization, click on over to TheAgencyStar Café Press Store and grab yourself some gear. BTW, TheAgencyStar makes no profit on the items purchased. We did this to keep the price down.

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JAVA SCRIPT

PBP Missions Begin Again!

I have been coordinating another Play-by-Post mission to start in the month of May. I will be running Java Script which has been ported over to the Savage Worlds system and uses the Agents of Oblivion mechanics. Agents will set sail for the coastal region of Java Indonesia as they attempt a secure infiltration and be subjected to the dark mysteries of the deep darkness. Will our Oblivion Agents survive? Stay Tuned.

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SKYLANDERS - THE MINIATURE GAME

Skylanders In Development!

With the recent release of “Skylanders, Spyros Adventure” for multiple video gaming systems, the industry has made a very interesting turn. Instead of just having playing the video game, you have to use actual miniatures which store all the characters data within, to play. This is a first as far as I know that is both a video game and a collectable toy. With over 32 different miniatures being produced and out already, the game has turned into a very profitable endeavor. One question kept being uttered at TheAgencyStar about this game though. What do you do with all those miniatures when you’re done playing the game? Answer: create a tabletop miniature game with them of course.

TheAgencyStar has enlisted in a couple very talented young men in helping to design a working Skylanders miniatures game using the Savage Worlds Showdown rules and a lot of ingenuity. Each miniature will require very individualized stats and abilities assigned to them so the variety of play styles should be rather robust. Want a ground and pound type of character, try Stump Smash. Want to shoot from a distance, try Trigger Happy. This will be a very interesting and awesome time for this newly formed group as TheAgencyStar Miniatures Design Team get together to hash out the mechanics and play a little Skylanders too for some added help and examples. Hopefully this custom miniature game will be tested in the summer and playable in the fall. So stay tuned for upcoming news from our design team on Skylanders: The Miniature Game.

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PIRATES OF THE SPANISH MAIN

Set sail for adventure with PotSM!

Since I have played and ran so many Pirates of the Spanish Main adventures, I thought it prudent to write up a little review of the system and some views I have about the game. Pirates of the Spanish Main or PotSM is a complete book in itself. It is based off of the Savage Worlds role-playing system which is really fast to pick up and play. The full color book is laid out beautifully with many eye-popping pictures. The text and material inside is laid out in a very easy to read and a fast lookup format which is a blessing when it comes to running games on the fly. All mechanics and sample NPC’s and bestiary are supplied in the book. There is a lot of pirate information throughout the pages which is a bonus when coming up with locations, events and stories for adventures. All in all this book is your one stop shop for all your piratical needs.

I have ran many pirate adventures in this system and have to tell you that in my opinion, it is one of the best and well balanced one out there. WizKids did a very awesome job in this product which they even incorporated naval ship combat to use their pocket model ships so trying to find ship miniatures is a breeze. Having a character fire that final cannon shot at an advancing ship and sinking her gives an awesome feeling to the adventure and system itself. The numerous amounts of pirate or naval characters one can make are staggering to say the least. With a little imagination, a GM can thrust a crew of scurvy sea dogs out in the Spanish Main and set sail for high adventure and unlimited booty to collect. Pirates of the Spanish Main gets 5 out of 5 stars from my extensive role-playing experience. Well worth the money and time to dive in and set sail.

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QUARRIORS

Quarriors, a dice building game!

I thought I should give some attention to some new board games that I have purchased recently and given a test drive. One of them is Quarriors from WizKids. Now to start with, I’m not a great fan of deck building games but have played Dominion, Thunderstone. I actually like playing Eaten by Zombies! by Max Holiday which puts a new twist on deck building games but that’s for another day. I saw Quarriors in the store and since I like dice I was always attracted to this game. I thought I would give it a shot even though it is a dice building game. I played a couple 2-player games which I found out later that we were playing wrong on some of the rules but no matter, I got the gist of the game. Recently, I played a couple 3 and 4-player games (with the correct rules) and wow, it was really fun! I have to almost categorize the game as a cross between Thunderstone and Magic the Gathering.

In Quarriors, you roll dice and use Quiddity (Mana for all you Magic players) to summon creatures and ready spells. Every time you summon creatures, you battle every player. When you’re done, you use your left over Quiddity to purchase 1 extra die to add to your collection. Scoring is easy and is done by Glory Points that each creature is worth if they survive all the way back to your turn. Over time, your dice collection grows and grows and you are able to get bigger and better spells and creatures which each have a Level, Attack, Defense values and possible Special Abilities. Each type of creature and spell has 3 different cards for it so the re-playability and randomness of each game is very high. Games last about a half hour or so, so you can get a couple games in very quickly. I really haven’t seen any downside to this game and the price isn’t too bad compared to other 50 dollar deck building games. All in all, I would give Quarriors 4 out of 5 stars. Well worth the money to buy and lots of fun time can be had with this game.

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FULL THRUST

Full Thrust Ready to Launch!

So after a long time and some serious spray painting and gluing, I finally have all my miniatures complete. Two full fleets of 8 ships apiece will be flying through deep space. I know space is vast, but what would a miniature game be without some more terrain? I have completed creating 21 asteroids that will add a new element of destruction. I have also created 2 gas planets to round out my intergalactic madness. With the custom deep space play mat, this is going to be a blast! I hope to start playing sometime soon and we will also be debuting this in TheAgencyStar's Summer FunJoyment session. So get ready for warp speed as you power up with Full Thrust.

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STAR STRUCK

Agents of Oblivion Mission!

The next installment of Trigger’s Agents of Oblivion missions is under way. He has been gearing up to provide gamers with more exotic locations and different espionage aspects and game mechanics. This next mission starts off with a bang as he has incorporated something into this mission that he has never done in his last 30 missions he’s written. A combination of spell tingling suspenseful espionage with a little horror sprinkled on top brings this mission closer to one of his best. This ought to be barnburner as your team of Agents try and survive…Star Struck!

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AGENT ID GALLERY

Agents of Oblivion Have Arrived!

Agents of Oblivion has become a new staple for TheAgencyStar so what better way to welcome them in than to begin creating Agent ID Reports for them and show them off in the Agent ID Gallery. Four new Agents have been added to the gallery but with a little different twist. Instead of TheAgencyStar logo, they have a logo taken from the Agents of Oblivion core book. Welcome Agents Cypher, Molotov, Oracle and Whisper to TheAgencyStar's Agent ID Gallery. If you would like to see your Spycraft of Agents of Oblivion Agent up in the gallery, email trigger@theagencystar.com.

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AGENTS OF OBLIVION

Agents of Oblivion Update!

Agents of Oblivion printed books are soon to arrive at your local game store as the updated release was finished. This book will also be available in PDF form as an easy searchable media format. TheAgencyStar looks forward to holding in its hands a brand spanking new copy of one of the best written espionage Role-playing systems yet to date. The fast and very versatile mechanics of Agents of Oblivion are one of the best and I personally cannot wait to begin playing which will be later this month. I will be running my first Agents of Oblivion mission entitled Clear Water and hope to get a very good feel for how much crunch this system really has.

Another update to the world of espionage is that I have been in talks with the owners of Reality Blurs, the creators of the Agents of Oblivion RPG, about becoming involved in some of their media materials that would be available in the near future. This is very exciting and I can’t wait to dig in and produce some very well made material for all you espionage aficionados. As a lot of you know, I come from an extensive espionage RPG background so this transition and opportunity is a welcome one. I would like to thank Sean Preston for this chance to bring yet another chapter to TheAgencyStar and to Agents of Oblivion.

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NEW SURVEILLANCE PHOTOS

Con of the North photos are in!

I survived another Con of the North gaming convention and took a lot of photos while I was there. I know I didn’t get every game being played but got a pretty good collection of the games I ran and some of the highlights of the bigger games being run. You can find them in in the Surveillance Photos section. It was a good time all around and I look forward to next year already.

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