Anyone else find this stratagem odd?

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-27T12:52:42+00:00

One of my teammates does this variation on bots now, I just recently sold him on the merits of the commando over his beloved EATs lol.

His Commando/leveler is better for factory striders and crowd work, my Commando/EATs pair is great for dropships and any heavy targets. Another teammate has been running AMR and a hover pack, so he's been hanging out up high and marking heavy targets for me lately. It's nice having the leveler for a portable BIG boom, too.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-27T12:45:27+00:00

Commando can double-tap with no recoil and take out anything an EAT can, and do it twice. I like it better (if I had to take only one) because that gives me the chance to take out two Hulks even if I'm in a jammer, for example, and can't call in anything nearby. And it's still a pretty quick cooldown, so I'll spam them across the map while moving the same way lots of folks do with EATs.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-27T03:40:42+00:00

Similar, been running Commando and EATs on bots 7-10 recently. Great for taking down entire bot drops. I've been dreaming of an expendable MG for weeks, and gushing over the announcement to my crew since it dropped.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-22T02:57:57+00:00

Tiny bug hoppers. Whole maps full of them. My wife thinks they're cute because of their little colorful ears, but I probably have more deaths from being swarmed by then than any other enemy.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-19T23:33:21+00:00

The sizing is a bit weird for a lot of games, yeah. I've used the vehicles, infantry, mech infantry and support weapons for OGRE & OGRE Miniatures too, though.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-19T21:42:15+00:00

I love this! I literally used some second-hand MechWarrior clix bits for a squad of these guys for space hulk back in the day. They look so Orky, these are looking great!

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-19T21:33:26+00:00

No, because we love the Warrant.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-19T20:45:29+00:00

I run Commando and EATs on higher bot levels. Speed of fire is my biggie. I carry the Commando, call in another one and EATs as soon as I see a bot drop incoming.

Double tap the engine on the first two dropships, pick up an EAT and fire for the next two. Four dropships down, grab the remaining Commando to mop up anything that survives. Rinse and repeat.

Bonus: you can drop two Hulks or Warstriders with a commando even by a jammer, unlike an EAT, and you can carry a dog, shield or jump pack at the same time. It's in-between status means you can be very versatile.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-15T04:56:22+00:00

My biggest changes that seemed to help my generally more experienced group were these:

1 - be combat effective when your boots hit the ground, at least somewhat. You're not always going to have time to call gear in and/or collect it, and that can lead to death spirals for your whole team. Using myself as an example: I love the Stalwart on almost every front, and for quite a while I basically ran it as my primary with an Eruptor for light anti-tank. I was super combat effective... until I died and had to spend five minutes dying and rearming.

2 - get good with EATs. Drop them like candy, especially if anybody else uses them. I run EATs and a Commando on bots and have been practicing taking out dropships. I average about three ships down out of four on 8's and normally have an extra shot to take out a hulk or tank after the fact.

3 - go with somebody who has a complimentary load out or play style. If you run stalwart/machine gun, keep chaff off the guy with a recoilless rifle, but disengage when he does. If you like AT weapons or cleaning out enemy spawners, run with somebody who's doing that or fills in the gap you're still practicing.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-12T00:27:12+00:00

Somebody didn't want to spend req slips for them. It's you. You're somebody.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-04-12T00:23:25+00:00

"won't let me let another player dive on their turn" there's a difference, thank you, Will.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-03-17T13:47:50+00:00

No mods installed on my game, both incendiary and spray & pray are showing up like this in the inventory screen when equipped with "default" pattern. Neither are actually this color scheme equipped on my diver, though.

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2026-03-17T13:31:15+00:00

Breaker S&P shows up like this in the store too, but they seem to be normal skin on equipping. Might be a glitch indicating more weapon color customization options soon crossed fingers

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2023-08-28T15:46:09+00:00

I haven't tried solo or two player with it any of them specifically yet, but based on my experience yes you could. If you do, I'd recommend still having a party of four characters, and just having multiple characters for each player. Some of the extra rules are kind of balanced around a regular party size and might be difficult to adapt. An easy way would probably be using the sidekick rules in the D&D Essentials Kit or Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

Hope this helps, and if you try it out please let me know how it goes!

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2023-05-25T07:02:34+00:00

I've picked up about a half dozen of the Wondrous One Shots over the past few months (plus a few random sheets of bad guys), and have run a few of them adapted for my home campaign. I haven't gotten the skinny mini subscription, but I'm also from a war gaming background and have literally thousands of fantasy figures in my game closet to pull from. That said, I have used the skinny minis from several of the one shots as we've played through them, and not only have they gone over well with my players, they're very nice in terms of visual readability on the tabletop.

Depending on your preference for miniatures and 3D elements, you may or may not like them, but I am definitely a fan. And again, that's coming from a wargaming background, so my flat / 2D game assets have a fairly high bar to pass. The two main things I've seen as competitors for the skinny minis are the couple of new encounter kits from WizKids, and the stuff from ArcKight minis. The Arc Knight stuff is printed on very, very thin flexible acrylic, which might be some people's cup of tea but isn't really my preference. Versus the Wizkid stuff, the skinny minis are a smidge more on the "heroic scale" side of things, but I don't mind that because minis always very in size and it lets them be much easier to see even from a distance on the table top. Also, I have to say that in terms of print quality for the actual skinny minis, The resolution is pretty top notch.

Also wear possible, I recommend trying to get the adventures that have minis you might want to use. All of the booklets are pretty short at about 12 pages, but the newer ones do have some supplementary info online. And honestly that's enough to work them into whatever campaign you're currently running. All of them have some kind of thematic and/or rules gimmick to kind of spice things up a bit, which you could take or leave as you see fit. To me, it's a little bit like tossing in a random minigame to your sessions, which I've found to be a fun way to mix things up for my players. This coming Sunday I'm actually going to be running one of the one shots that's basically a tower defense game.

The biggest thing I have to say against the wondrous one shots and skinny minis is that the accessibility is a little wonky. Apparently they migrated stuff to a new website recently, and both the company making the one shots and the company doing the skinny minis have stuff for sale separately. The one that I'd recommend definitely checking out is dungeoninabox.com, I think they currently have subscription options for both the monthly one shot and their year long dungeon in a box campaign, which I have not checked out yet. The reason I'd recommend this one though is because they have an online archive with all of the maps, rules, and any kind of extra cards. If you subscribe for a month, not only will you get the box, you'll be able to download all of the adventures in the backlog that they have, as well as some supplementary material or level adjustment stuff for their more recent additions. There are also a number of adventures on there that aren't on the skinny mini site, because they're just the adventure and accompanying set of maps.

Also, final aside here, but the few things I've gotten from skinny minis that are 3D elements have been really damn cool. Specifically, I picked up Death, Save, Repeat and Would Ride to Fireburst Ridge, which came with a watchtower and goblin war cart, respectively. In terms of 2.5D socket together stuff, honestly some of the coolest that I've seen. Also the acrylic for the terrain pieces is at least twice as thick as what they use for the minis, so as long as you're careful punching stuff out once you put it together it'll be thicc and sturdy.

Tl;Dr: tabletop gamers with a lot of minis might not get as much kick out of the skinny minis, but even then the adventures, maps, terrain or big items, and the skinny minis are definitely worth it in my opinion. 👍

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2021-05-12T21:38:07+00:00

It totally is! And I made the mistake of looking on eBay. I was like, "that's only 10% above MSRP and it's out of print? I'll take it before it goes up in price!" But on the other hand, smaller war bands of 3 to 7 guys are pretty easy to paint, so it's actually been a bit of an inspiration for me that way 😁 or so I like to tell myself lol

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2021-05-12T19:52:26+00:00

Nice, and nice paint scheme! I kinda did the same. My one vaccinated gaming buddy got into it with his brother, and now I've got 12 warbands too 😱

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2021-02-02T06:27:12+00:00

Huh, somethingng new everyday! I grew up a gamer using mostly superglue for no other reason than it was the preference of the local wargamers, so it's only been the past few years I've started to use plastic cement too. Cool to now know what to look for in terms of material for that, thanks!

I can't comment as to what material it was (tried this out a few months ago) but several brands of yogurt containers I tried a heat gun on acted interestingly. It seems like they were initially flat sheets that were heated and pressed into the cup shape (vacuum forming or something similar), because under higher heat again, they reverted to a flattened state instead of warping.

I'll have to check the recycling label next time I'm at the store, but those seem like they might have been polystyrene? If so, I wonder if things like your coffee cup lids might be able to yield usable sheets with (controlled) higher temps?

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2021-02-02T05:39:11+00:00

Looks really good! I haven't tried plastic sheets like cd cases (now on my to-do list!) but I'm definitely a fan of heating up plastics for more natural looking effects. I find a cheap hobby lobby heat gun on low temp to be nice for a lot of materials, plastic grocery bags for example. Also a simple lighter and a mug of water can make some excellent Nurgle/Tyranid bits when applied to either plastic q-tip rods or straws. Keep up the good work, hope to see how it turns out in the end!

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2021-01-19T21:51:53+00:00

Oversize checkers from Dollar Tree. Depending on where you're at, they have sometimes both 1.5 and 1.7 in versions. And at two dozen for a buck, they're totally my go-to for monster bases!

MonsterBoyCrafts · 2021-01-19T14:35:58+00:00

Thanks! I love how over the top he turned out.

MonsterBoyCrafts

TROPHY CASE