February 2026 in Gaming

I’m going to start doing monthly roundups on my game playing/reading/etc. This will focus on TTRPGs and tabletop war games but will also discuss related books and video games that I feel fall under this remit. Let’s get started.

What I Ran

The Black Drop - Trail of Cthulhu

The Black Drop PDF Cover

For our ongoing RPG group I ran The Black Drop as a (planned) two-shot. I was really excited for this, I’ve not played or run Call of Cthulhu ever and this a drop-in replacement for that game/world. Trail uses the GUMSHOE system which is broadly similar to CoC/Basic Roleplaying but moves from d100 to d6, and more dramatically, changes how obtaining clues works. Finding clues is not automatic, but success is guaranteed if you look and have a relevant skill.

Prepping for the adventure was a little stressful, I really like The Black Drop but was worried about my lack of experience in this realm and not being able to do it justice. It’s also a bit fraught, the pre-gen characters include a Jewish character, and a Nazi sympathizer, and that’s not something I’ve dealt with before so it certainly added some worries.

One part of prep that I really liked was establishing characters before the adventure so I could send them specific information ahead of time. The leader of the expedition got his orders and a briefing. A novelist got send nightmares the day before and the day of playing. I personally loved doing this. My goal was less information asymmetry and more to try and give each PC some of their own goals and information. If a PC reads a briefing about the setting they can pull in some of that background, this takes some of the world building load off of the GM, and also that PC is probably pulling in things they’re interested in.

The first session went pretty well, a few concerns from me but hoping it finishes well. Unfortunately I had to cancel the second sessions when I was sick, feel really bad doing this as a GM but running a session till 10 or 11pm just doesn’t work when you fall asleep at 8pm. Looking forward to getting this finished up.

What I Played

Legions Imperialis

Solar Auxilia face off with Sons of Horus

Legions Imperialis is Games Workshop’s 8mm mass battle game set in the Horus Heresy. Another local player had purchased the Saturnine box to get into it and and very quickly painted it up as some great looking Sons of Horus. I’d not played since last fall so I was unfortunately a bit rusty for someone’s first game but we had a fun time. We both had a bit under 1500 points and on reflection having that point level and picking a 6 objective map was a mistake. I think playing on the full 5x4 was fine, NoVA Open last year was 2000 points on a 4x4 and it felt extremely cramped.

The new Saturnine stuff was cool to see, the dreads didn’t do much but the deep strike on infantry is very powerful and the new turrets put out a lot of shots. The only part of the rules where thing ground to a halt while I consulted the rules was the usual spot, charging and close combat. I’ve come to really like the game system but the close combat rules are bonkers.

I also took this as a chance to bring one of my Reaver Titans out, they both have close combat weapons making them very, very bad in Legions Imperialis and yes, it was. I think the game would instantly improve if all titans got 2 extra inches of movement.

I was hoping to get another teaching game in with someone else but had to cancel this as well due to illness. Don’t get sick is my general advice

Kobolds Ate My Baby

Steve, knower of the word crypto

I think this is my first time playing something that could be described as purely a comedy RPG. In Kobolds, the players are Kobolds living under the rule of King Torg (ALL HAIL KING TORG!). They’re given a list of dishes to prepare and the bulk of the game is fetching ingredients for them. Players come up with ingredents and our most notable ones were a human uterus and Kerry Gold Irish butter, oh, and a royal baby of course.

You get these ingredients in the human town you live under. Kobolds in this game are quite rodent-like, about 2’ tall, and viewed by humans as pests. Kobolds can speak 1d6 human words each. Our adventure started making our way to a tavern, my first Kobold, Macks died lighting a wagon full of hay on fire to make a distraction. In the tavern we found most of our goods but the butter was domestic and we still needed the baby. Several more Kobolds died in the tavern and one of my favorite bits was my second Kobold, Steve jumping on a table and shouting the one human word he knew: “CRYPTO CRYPTO CRYPTO” confusingly, this was an attempt to avoid human suspicion, and it worked. Tavern-goers weary of constant ads for crypto ignored little old Steve as soon as he shouted it.

We then made our way to a park with not one but two (non-royal) babies. I quickly killed one and we became embroiled in a fight with their father. Throughout the session we’d made a few “I was going to eat that mummy” references, and when another player swooped in to eat the baby I’d killed I was able to shout, in character and with great feeling “I was going to eat that baby!”

With the father dealt with and the other baby secured we made our way back underground. We cooked up the feast with our commoner baby and domestic butter and while it was good, King Torg (ALL HAIL KING TORG!) saw right through our deception.

I enjoyed this session a lot, it’s a very goofy game that gets away with some quite dark humor on the back of that. We played for about 4 hours and I think that’s about the life span of this game. Kobolds die constantly so there isn’t really anything you can do in terms of progression or character growth, just have some laughs and roast baby.

I’d play this again, and one thing that the rulebook proposes that I love is changing the setting. I’d love to play Kobolds Ate My Baby in a Shadowrun city, or on a space station, or a bunch of other weirder settings than your typical fantasy city. I do have Goblin Quest which I’d like to run at some point and it shares a lot of stuff with this game.

Legio Solaria faces off against Legio Xestobiax

Adeptus Titanicus

After quite a few years of owning AT minis I finally played my first game. I painted these titans up for Nova Open 2025 (RIP) but ended up being too tired and too booked to play in the night time AT event. I had a 1750 point list ready as did my friend who’d painted his titans up for Nova ‘24. We used the Open Engine War cards which gave us a kill point mission.

And AT is pretty good! It has a very positive reputation and I can see why. The game is very different from Battletech but really feels like what a modern Battletech would look like. It’s very granular and crunchy, but cuts out a lot of cruft and makes the results of your die rolls as or more interesting than Battletech.

It also does a great job of making decisions important and impactful. People like to say that Adeptus Titanicus is a skirmish game, I disagree, I think it’s a naval game. Your titans move slowly and getting them to do what you want isn’t a sure thing.

I don’t think it’s the perfect game, the command system is a little swingy, getting to issue 0 orders in a turn due to no fault of your own was certainly a choice. And back to the skirmish game comment, this does feel less grand in scale than Legions Imperialis. Despite the scale of the titans, only having 10-20 models on the table does reduce the feel of scale.

Regardless, very happy to have finally given this a go, and I’d like to try and keep it up.

Character sheet for Nurrrghhhh

Land of Og

The other RPG I played this week has a huge amount of overlap with Kobolds, Land of Og is another humor-forward RPG, this time about cavemen (cavepeople?). Again, players have limited human speech. However there is a huge difference here, in Kobolds you have limited words you can use with NPCs. Here you have limited words you can use with other players.

Your character knows a limited number of words and you can only communicate in-character using these words. And you’re not allowed typical out-of-character strategizing. Playing this online is a little odd, player cameras are key, but communication is very hard.

If you’re playing in this game don’t read this bit:

I quickly realized the most enjoyable way for me to play was for Nurrrrghhhhh to not try and parse other player’s plans. Nurrrrghhhhh now nods and grunts along with plans and then proceeds to do his own thing. It makes us both happy.

Looking forward to the next session to see where my above plan goes. The game’s combat is also laughably bad (5+ to hit, 1 damage on hit), every fight is a wet noodle fight, and our GM plans to tweak this for next session.

What I Read

Designers & Dragons: The '70s - by: Shannon Appelcline - This is a re-read, I love gaming history and Appelcline’s work really stands out. I’ve read this and the 80s but never got to the 90s and 00s so I’m working my way through all of them again. I also have his Traveller book which is very good though I’ve only just started. I’ll note the audio books for these are excellent, if not great as a reference document. I’d love to get through these before the next ones come out.

Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition - I’m very interested in a space campaign and there are a handful of settings I’m considering. I think Star Trek is so well situated for RPGs so I really want to run it. I’ve not finished the book but am mostly impressed. I’m not currently sure if I’m going to run this in the short term, but it’s a good looking system. I think the book does a good job of introducing the universe to a casual fan such as myself. One shortcoming I think is that it talks around the shows. The Star Trek TV shows are the obvious point of reference and point of entry to the franchise so having a clear timeline of them in the beginning of the book would be good. I’ve seen some of many of them but shouldn’t need to consult an external source to see what century they take place in.

Stonetop - I’ve really only scratched the surface at this point but I’ve decided that I want to run a short campaign of this. A friend is doing another fantasy RPG around the same time but I think the iron age setting and village-focus will make them feel pretty distinct. And jeez, this is great. The major arcana (magic items) are some of my favorite RPG things I’ve ever read. It’s really interesting to read a 1200 page PbtA trad-fantasy RPG. It’s so similar to a lot of stuff but also so different, and just a ton going on. Can’t recommend these books highly enough. I’m a little worried that at 600p each the physical ones will be impractical to use, but I can cross that bridge when they ship.

Fading Suns - Universe Book - This book is a great intro to a 30 year old setting. I love that Ulisses took the lore and rules and separated them because I’m just not going to buy the 4th edition rulebooks. But yeah, huge recommend on the setting and this book. Very good overview of a great dark scifi setting that sets itself apart from 40k and some other similar settings quite well.

What I Hobbied

Don’t really have good photos of this but I decided to finally get a playable force of Space Marines together for Legions Imperialis. So most of my hobby this month was assembling and starting to paint Blood Angels. These need to be done by March 28th so should have some photos next time!

What I Bought

The stuff in the middle you’re paying for twice

Shadow Dark: The Western Reaches - I like Shadowdark, it’s a good system and I think really like how it meets half way between OSR and 5E. I say that not as someone with any affection for 5E, but realizing it’s where the bulk of the hobby is. I backed the original Kickstarter but I waited until the very last minute to back this one and am of mixed mind of it. Why? Well, it’s a stupid product. Why is it a stupid product? This venn diagram provided by the creator explains that better than I can. There are 8 books that share some but not all content. Three of those books I already own in softcover format. I also don’t understand the decisions on what to overlap. Selling my stuff from the first Kickstarter will cover a lot of the cost but just like, everything about this project annoys me.

Legend of Five Rings - City of Lies (Incomplete): This is kinda a weird one, I’m very interested in Legend of Five Rings currently and any “best city settings” list that looks beyond D&D will mention the City of Lies boxed set. It sounds great and honestly what I really want is a Print on Demand version but that’s no longer offered. The boxed set generally starts at $150 and goes up from there. I was happy to see on eBay someone selling the three books from it for $60. I’m missing the box, which I don’t mind much, those boxes all suffer such bad shelf wear. I also am missing the folded map, and the short getting started book. But I figure 95% of the content for 40% of the cost is a good deal. Now to keep an eye out for the Otosan Uchi boxed set.

Dune 2d20: Core Rules: Harkonnen Collector’s Edition; Power And Pawns; The Great Game: Houses of the Landsraad: I have some 2d20 Dune stuff but never got the core rules. When Miniature Market had this CE for $40 I knew that was my chance. The CE is just a different cover but it’s a very nice faux-leather and I’m quite happy with it. These two supplements have been out of print for a while, they might come back, but for now I had a chance to snag both at a decent price so I did. I will note that Modiphus has a great deal on a bundle right now.

WFRP: Lords of Stone and Steel - Collector's Edition & Winds of Magic - Collector's Edition : Saw a good deal on eBay for the dwarf book and snagged it, the WFRP 4th edition collector’s edition books rule and this will go nicely with the Dwarf Player’s guide I also picked up on sale. Then Winds of Magic is another one of the books I don’t own so nice to see it for $40 from Miniature Market. With how often Modiphius and Cubicle7 limited edition books go on sale I do worry about seeing fewer released in the future.

Imperium Malidictum - Core Rules Collector’s Edition: I saw a good deal and in a moment of weakness bought a second copy of this book. Should be able to defray most of the cost by selling my normal copy.

Warhammer: The Witch Hunter's Handbook: This is a re-release and I’m very happy with the end result. GW did a great job, it’s a small book but I think $40 is a fair price, this does feel like an artifact of the Warhammer fantasy setting.

Fading Suns - about a dozen books: Not going to list all of these out but via Dragon’s Trove I picked up a ton of 1/2E books as well as a chunk of the 4E range. Fading Suns is a super cool setting (and a super un-exciting system). I’d love to run it some time so I’m reading up.

What I Played on My Computer

Man, I don’t even know. I think the short month, plus a solid spread of tabletop gaming, and being sick for a week just destroyed my single player PC gaming. I’m 15ish hours into Nioh 3 and think it’s really amazing. What if a souls-like had fun combat? The gearing is very stupid and I guess unchanged from the first two games which is weird, but everything else is fantastic. It’s also had the best options I’ve ever seen for setting your own difficulty. There are two different summon player systems and if you’re using them getting stuck on something is entirely a personal choice.

Coming Up Next Month

Finishing The Black Drop is top of my list, though we’ve yet to nail down a day.

Then we have a couple sessions scheduled to run The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford, using Dolemnwood rules.

We’re then scheduling our next block of games so hopefully get a good number of sign-ups. I’ll be offering Stonetop, Decagone, and Chanters in the Dark.

Tabletop I have some Legions Imperials to paint and play, and I’m really looking forward to that. Have a pretty exciting list I’m working on for the upcoming event.

Digitally I’m a mess right now - Nioh 3, Resident Evil Requiem, and Last Defense Academy are all at the top of my list.