Wallpapers Wednesday: Anima : Beyond Fantasy

Wallpapers featuring artwork created for the Anima universe designed jointly by Anima Project Studio and Edge Entertainment and used in the Anima : Beyond Fantasy (a non-computer) RPG, the Anima : Shadow of Omega card game and the Anima Tactics miniatures game.


© Anima Project Studio & Edge Entertainment

The official site provides only a small sample of the gorgeous artwork for this fantasy universe, which definitely pales in comparision to the official concepts of ethereal fairies and hellish monsters illustrated by wen-m as posted at his deviantART gallery. Incidentally, wen-m’s gallery was where I first heard of Anima : Beyond Fantasy :)


© Anima Project Studio & Edge Entertainment

Links to the other illustrators for the Anima universe can also be found at the Anima RPG site under Community > Anima’s Illustrators section.

Download these wallpapers from www.animarpg.com (look under Support > Wallpapers)

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
The (Draconic) Art of Kerem Beyit
Concepts for Lone Wolf : Flight from the Dark
Fantasy Art – Paizo Style!
My Favourite Pepper Project Entries
Cover Art & Wallpapers for Forgotten Realms Books

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Wallpapers Wednesday : Urban War

From Urban Mammoth’s sci-fi miniatures games Urban War comes these wallpapers featuring some fabulously illustrated characters from four of the seven in-game factions.


© Urban Mammoth

Roman gladiators transported to the far future to conquer by fire and sword. The mighty Exo-Suit Provocator (top) is definitely awe-inspiring :D The bottom character is a Secutor with a distinctive battle-shield inspired by the Roman scutum and the helmet of his historical namesake.


© Urban Mammoth

Heavily-armed marines of the Viridian trading empire – think Killzone’s Helghast, Warhammer 40,000’s Death Korps of Krieg orTannhauser’s Strosstruppen.


© Urban Mammoth

Cybernetic samurai and sumo wrestlers like this Oni Class Shogun Battlesuit (top) and Sumitori (bottom) belonging to underworld criminal gangs or triads.


© Urban Mammoth

Sleek lines and cold metal define the look of the Syntha, half human, half machine warriors like this Achilles Class biomech (top) and Androsynth (bottom) armed with a pulse rifle.

Download these Urban War wallpapers or read more about Urban War.

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Rezolution : Dark Tomorrow Artwork – Aberrant Games
CellFactor: Revolution – Downloads, Artwork & Wallpaper
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Gladiators and other Ancient Warriors by Johnny Shumate
Marek Okon (OmeN2501) – Illustrator

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Random Monday : Taiko no Tatsujin’s Fan Goodies – Free Board Game

Namco-Bandai’s Japanese drum simulator Taiko no Tatsujin stands out from the usual Japanese game simply for the amount of goodies provided for its fans – the official sites for most Japanese games that I have encountered don’t even have a single promotional wallpaper for download :(


© Namco-Bandai

Last year I wrote about Taiko no Tatsujin’s monthly wallpaper series which revolved about the festivals celebrated in Japan for each particular month (featuring the game characters of course – the main characters which not suprisingly happen to be a pair of taiko drums)


© Namco-Bandai

This time round, the publishers have outdone themselves and actually released a free board game in PDF format at the official site to download, print out and play. While the play instructions are only in Japanese and primarily intended for a younger audience, it’s the thought that counts :) Wouldn’t it be great if more games came with extras like this?


© Namco-Bandai

the board game eevn comes with its own DIY dice :)

Download the Taiko no Tatsujin board game. (Look for the image below and click on the orange button)

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Learning About Japanese Festivities with Taiko no Tatsujin
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Be Your Own One Man Band
Orange Mixer

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Games Thursday : Mytheria – Virtual CCG

I love virtual collectible card games and Mytheria is no exception. This Flash game by
Diffusion Games was only given a brief mention in Jayisgames‘ first Link Dump Friday of 2009 so I thought I might provide more extensive details on this fun little timekiller.

If you have played CCGs like Magic : The Gathering (sorry, it’s the only CCG I have any experience with), you’ll find the rules for Mytheria rather easy to learn and play. For those that haven’t, the single-player campaign will gently ease you into the world of Mytjeria while teaching you the nuances of the game system in the first three missions. The rules aren’t as complicated as physical CCGs though – no upkeep applies for deployed units and there isn’t a system for interrupts as in Magic : The Gathering.

As in any other CCG, power is needed to summon units and cast instants (the Mytheria equivalent of spells), enchantments and auras (global enchantments). Unlike Magic : The Gathering though, Mytheria’s multi-coloured powers are not acquired by playing land cards – instead, you are forced to decide on either increasing the rate of power growth by one each turn or draw another card from your deck. I find this game mechanic rather ingenious as it not only adds a degree of strategy to each game but also makes the game fairer for both players since resource management no longer depends on luck but on each player planning ahead.

Furthermore, by allowing players to directly control the power growth, it increases the possible strategies of deck construction since players can actually build and play decks containing a swarm of many weak, low-cost units to quickly rush and overwhelm the opponent or opt for a smaller selection of powerful high cost units bolstered with multiple enchantments and auras and so forth. Unfortunately, custom decks cannot be used in the campaign but only in the Challenges which will allow you to acquire another six additional cards for the Deck Builder.

The five factions with their distinctive strengths and playing styles affect deck construction (obviously ;) ) as well as make playing each mission in the campaign a very different experience especially when facing a deck from another faction.

Scythian (red) – Relatively strong units and direct damage instants make this faction very straightforward to play with. Leader units like Commander J’Ardan and Scythian Elites gain strength when deployed with other Scythian soldiers.

Solarian (white) – Strong defensive units like Solarian Fortress bear the brunt of the the enemy attacks while Solarian Walkers provide the offensive punch. Many healing and defensive enhancements are available for the Solarian faction.

Hrathians (blue) – Comparatively cheap robotic units.

Myrkin (purple) – Average units with a focus on instants, auras and enchantments like Power Drain that disable your opponent’s units and power resources.

Blackguard (black) – Mutually destructive auras and enchantments like Biochemical Assault and Contamination and make playing with or against this faction a very unpredictable and challenging affair.

Play Mytheria.

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Loot!
Warhammer 40,000 Dark Millenium Card Database

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Military Tuesday : 1848

1848 is a wargame sponsored by the Hungarian Ministry of Education and released by Hussar Games as a free download in 2006.

The game is set during the violent era of the Hungarian Independence War of 1848-49. 1848 was a year of revolutions. Most of the uprisings were crushed quickly, but Hungary was an exception. While Austria was occupied in dealing with the independence movements in Italy, Hungary used the time to train and deploy a competent army.. The newly created Honved Army suffered some set-backs in 1848, but in the 1849 spring counter-attack, the whole country was liberated. Victory was sweet but short for Hungary – in the summer of 1849 the Tsar of Russia intervened with 200,000 troops. In history, this force could not be stopped. Can you change history?

I actually downloaded this game back then but didn’t have time to seriously play it. Here’s my (three years late) impressions of this game after completing the tutorial and a brief foray in the Transylvania campaign.

The game includes a detailed tutorial scenario which should teach players the basics of this operational-level wargame very quickly. Kudos to the developers for producing the excellent in-game tutorial that does not require players to refer to the manual while playing each turn. In my opinion, 1848 serves as a good introduction to players new to wargames – the graphics are appealing and there’s no need to (overly) worry about supply and logistics or orders of battles. Most critical factors are abstracted as simple numbers which eliminates scary stuff like formulas or combat resolution tables although the nitty-gritty statistics and supply mechanics are explained in the manual if you’re so inclined.

One thing which I felt the tutorial taught but did not emphasize its importance strong enough was the need to detach cavalry regiments for battlefield reconnaissance. I learned this the hard way when I sent my forces blindly in the direction of the enemy during an actual campaign with fog-of-war turned on :(

I don’t know about the effectiveness of simulating interest in military history via wargames but I wonder if a similiarly-sponsored wargame on the Battle for Malaya and Singapore could interest local students in the what-if scenarios of repelling or containing the Japanese invasion of the peninsula in WWII.

Download 1848 or visit Hussar Games’ official site.

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WinSPWW2 & WinSPMBT

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