Introductions

Hello,

My name is Jordan Fox, I have been playing tabletop games since 2009. This makes 2024 my 15th year playing tabletop games. As such I was looking to do something fun and interesting to commemorate the moment. So I have decided to start this blog, or journal, whatever you’d like to call it, in order to collect my thoughts on various games in one place. I am by no means a professional developer or producer, but I like to think I know what is fun. I will give opinions, advice, insights, and perspective around a whole bunch of different games. And with any luck, some of it may even be good.

First, a little bit about my experience. As I mentioned I started playing table top games in 2009. Prior to that I had dabbled in board games, Magic the Gathering and DnD, but nothing too expansive. I started as most people do by visiting my local Games Workshop, and jumping into 40k (5th edition at the time) and Fantasy (7th edition at the time, although very quickly turned to 8th). From there I branched out and played:

Warhammer 40k

Warhammer Fantasy Battles

Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game

Blood Bowl

Warmachine/Hordes

Malifaux

Star Wars X-Wing

Firestorm Armada

Flames of War

Bolt Action

Guild Ball

Star Wars Legion

Star Wars Armada

Kings of War

Marvel Crisis Protocol

Kill Team

Age of Sigmar

Warhammer The Old World

I do not currently play all of these games, in fact I think some of them don’t even exist anymore. A lot of them exist, but not in the form they did when I was a player. And that is fine, games need to evolve. There have been aspects of each game that I enjoyed and aspects I did not like, as with anything. Some games I stopped playing because I did not care for them anymore, some I stopped playing because the local player base died out. And some games I continue to play. The games I currently play on a regular basis, and as such the ones that I will be releasing content for:

Warhammer 40k

Marvel Crisis Protocol

The games I plan to start playing regularly in 2024, and will most likely be focusing content release for:

Age of Sigmar

Warhammer The Old World

By the time you are reading this, I will probably have gotten my first game in of the games above, but at the time of writing I have not played a game of either yet. I have decided to pick them up for 2024, to expand my gaming palette and sample as many games as I have the opportunity to play. If variety is the spice of life, than I like spice more than a 15th century Spanish monarch.

My usual gaming group is about 20 people, most of whom I have been playing with since I started back in 2009. There is a joke amongst my main group as well that my dice always roll hot (they usually do), and “Fox Dice are a thing” so that is where I got the name from, and if you see me refer to it from time to time, that’s the long and short of it. They are currently still playing Kings of War almost exclusively, so for a lot of these games I have had to travel outside of my normal group to play. My 2009 self would have found the very idea of this repulsive. Having to meet new people, a disgusting concept. Why not just play with the people you know? But after a long time of playing strangers in pick up games at the local GW, or being paired against strangers in a tournament, I find my social anxiety, or awkward young adult years, whichever it was, to be easily overcome now. Especially if overcoming it means the ability to play a game.

My time for games is sadly very limited. I have a full time 9-5 job, a wife, a 4 year old son, and a 1.5 year old daughter. This leaves me little in the way of time for games. Typically I will get in 1 game a week at one of my local game stores, or “The Pit” as my main group colloquially refers to my buddy’s basement, where Wednesday nights we typically see attendance of 8-10 people. Some days I will get a Table Top Simulator game in after the rest of the house is asleep, but that is reserved for shorter games, and only when I have a real hankering to roll some dice.

Given my limited time, I usually only get to go to 2-3 tournaments a year, and I reserve those for the events that I get to travel for. Atlantic City Open is always one of my tournaments. I get a cheap room from the hotel block, drop the kids at their grandparents’ house, and me and my wife enjoy a weekend at the casino. It helps too that Atlantic City is only about an hour from where I live. My other 1-2 events usually change based on what’s happening when I can be available, and what game Im looking to play.

Also just to state it, so there is no misinterpretation of my intentions, while I may mention things I like or dislike about certain games, I am never intending to endorse or disparage a particular game. Things I like may not be things other people like or vice versa, and that’s ok. Different people have different tastes. Any opinions stated about a game are just that, opinions. On top of that as time goes on my opinion about a particular game may change. Rules change, tastes change, and as things progress one thing I liked about a game may become something I dislike. But at the end of the day if I say I dislike X about a certain game, or Im maybe not interested in a certain game entirely, that should not affect you or your opinion of that game. Just because its not for me, does not mean that its not for thee. And if you play a game I don’t like, I don’t care. I still hope you have a lot of fun with that game, and get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

Thank you for reading this far. I intend to release my first articles soon, and they will be expectations I have for Age of Sigmar, and The Old World before I play an actual game. I will follow up with an article after my first game regarding how I think the actual game compares to what my expectations were, and then will follow up again after several games, once an opinion can be more solidified. If that kind of article proves to be popular, I may go back and do similar ones for games I have been playing. Eventually I would like to go down the list of every game Ive played, and do a quick synopsis of what the game is, what I like about it, what I dislike about it etc. Basically try to create a little article so that somebody who is looking to start that game can get an idea of what the game is like, and if its for them or not. Anyway thank you so much for your time, and keep rolling dice!