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I love paper minis. I can print out as many as I need and if my kids want they can smash them when they have defeated them.
I also need more modern minis. So Dakkar has me covered on both grounds.
If you are at all familiar with Dakkar's work then you know what to expect here. Agents, aliens, gynoids, sexy civilians, sexier villains and so on.
All in all 92 cut our and fold minis. You can print them how you like for a variety of scales; though there is another product that has the same images scaled perfectly for 25mm. These are really designed for larger minis.
Great art. I even thought a few of them might work great in a couple of modern/sci-fi games I have.
The only thing that would make it perfect would be to combine Tactical Paper 001 and Tactical Art 001 into one product.
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A huge amount of 3D rendered figures, including agents, civilians and some soldier-like types. Poses are generally good, not the goofy or artificial poses sometimes found in this kind of product. I only wish the soldiers in the second sheet of figures were not so dark. When I print them, they look like shadows holding assault rifles.
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Another great CG paper minis' set by Dakkar Unlimited. About 90 stand-in figures with front and back arts useful with any modern horror and sci-fi setting. The product's overall layout is excellent. Cover, table of contents, clear instructions, excellent figures, game statistics ... It's always a pleasure for a buyer to see a product so complete and beautiful. Thanks.
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Sometimes even I am in complete agreement with a featured reviewer. ;-D
This is really an excellent product. 92 very good modern/near future different CG paper standees at this price is really a big deal. No exceptions.
These figures are made for "Hot Chicks: The RPG" but they are extremely useful in any other setting ( RPG or wargame ). I am an adult. And I have no problem with "adult" figures when these are needed for a setting but in this specific case there aren't x-rated figures ( only 2/3 figures in bikinis and no naked ), so everyone is appeased.
This is also true ( no bikinis, no naked ) with previous Dakkar Unlimited "stuff to beat up" sets ( 2006/2007 products but very beautiful and useful today. High tech squads, zombies, ninjas and WW2 German, robots and sci-fi armor suads. 48 beautiful different figures for each set ).
This last product is very well "packaged". Nice cover, very good statement. Clear and complete instructions. 92 different figures with front and back art ( it is not so hard, was it? ). Realistic poses and good design. Characters links to the original HK supplements, for each figure. And two page game statistics sheet for characters who did not yet have their prior statistics' sheet .
Perfect. No lacks.
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In the hordes of paper 'standee' miniatures now coming onto the market, the contemporary/near future genre has been rather neglected... until now. This product is worthy of consideration by anyone running contemporary, near future or cyberpunk games, and ties in well if you play the Hot Chicks RPG as many of the figures are drawn directly from some of the supplements.
The nice thing is that although quite a few of the female figures think a vest or sports bra is sufficient upper wear in combat situations, nothing here is overtly pornographic, so even if Hot Chicks puts you off as being a bit too 'adult' for your gaming table, these figures will be fine. Another nice thing is that each figure is referenced back to where the character they depict appears in a Hot Chicks book, so that if you are using them you can select appropriate miniatures. The few which don't have full game statistics in the books they appear in have them here, an added bonus if you are playing Hot Chicks.
If you need SWAT-team style troopers there are quite a few of these. There is also a nice doggie, Dougie, the Ghost-Sniffin’ Hound - the profile looks like a Doberman Pinscher, must go and look him up in The Last Ghost Hunt to see if he is a pinchie. Although most of the figures are armed to the teeth, there are some civilians there as well, a nice variety overall.
Good construction notes are included, although it seems quite straightforwards (sorry, out of printer paper so I haven't tried them yet!). A nice set in a genre not well covered.
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An eclectic mix of articles almost completely 'in character' for a Hot Chicks RPG game (OK, you get stat blocks for items and indeed people mentioned in the magazine's pages!), in this issue you get to meet a licensed monster hunter who looks equally good on the catwalk in swimwear as she does all tooled up and hot on the tail of some tentacled critter, learn of a cantrip that gives you a complete make-over and read a review of a weapon whose main selling point is that it can shoot in varying colours of muzzle flash!
If that's the world you want to operate in, you probably already play Hot Chicks. The various articles, with a little retooling, could also be used with any game in the cyberpunk genre if you want to add a zany - or should I say extreme - edge.
Tasha Kirkpatrick, the model-turned-monster-hunter, is actually a well-developed coherent character to mix in to your game - perhaps an ally, or even a player-character if someone fancies her. She's quite determined about her monster hunting and may involve the party in the latest hot pursuit.
The Cheapass Fashionpiece handgun is without question the silliest firearm I have ever heard about - an opinion shared by the lady who reviewed it for Extreme Edge Magazine. You might find some really moronic street punks who think it's a good idea. You know, the sort of people who hold handguns sideways 'cos they think it looks cool. It's unlikely any of your characters will be suckered into buying one but it could be entertaining if the opposition has them...
As for the Cosmetic Singularity Cantrip, it was invented by a group of mages working through a combination of social media and intense meditation. Need I say more? Oh, you want to know what it does... um. You can change your appearance so that you look more stylish. It's not a disguise spell or anything like that, but you can change colours and styles so that you - or someone you cast it on - looks real good for the next 12 hours or so. Something for the budding beautician, perhaps.
There are also a couple of articles, in their own inimicable style: quite fun and even a bit thought provoking. Quite a delight to read, the whole issue, really.
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For all Hot Chicks RPG fans, and indeed anyone who likes the cyberpunk genre writ full-bore, this issue of Extreme Edge Magazine continues its high standard. Mostly written in character, as a magazine your characters will find on newstands in 2018, the goodies include reviews of a handgun and a motorcycle - both with game stats should your character be interested or the GM fancy equipping a few NPCs with them.
The 'cover girl' is presented inside, with her full game stats should you decide to have her come out of the magazine and feature in your game. She's an actor and model - and a firearms instructor! - who apparently regards underwear as optional.
There's a dire warning about industrial necromancy: zombie creation as corporate policy. Fuel for possible adventures here, or at least some justifiable paranoia if you're dealing with the sort of corporation that might, just might, harbour such ideas. The Editorial, too, is a mine of ideas if you want to let them spawn around concepts of ensuring child protection and safeguarding are paramount as you go about your gun-toting business.
All useful enhancement for any Hot Chicks game, or indeed anything cyberpunk that you want to tread the edge.
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The worst villains are those that are unintentionally self-created. While villains who are simply evil because they enjoy it are easily hated, those who became something terrible without realizing that they were walking the path to damnation are tragic figures, albeit no less monstrous for their tragedy. After all, if they didn’t realize the dire consequences of what they were doing, how do any of us know we’re not on the same path?
Such is the case with the Nightmare of Abul Khared, a new villain for the Hot Chicks RPG from Dakkar Unlimited.
Before we look at the Nightmare further, let’s quickly examine the book itself. The technical specifics follow in the usual fare for Dakkar. The three-dozen-page book is broken up into various sections by headers, eschewing any sort of chapter format. These headers are the basis for the bookmarks that are also present. Copy-and-paste is likewise enabled.
The artwork is Dakkar’s signature full-color CGI style. The pictures are as gorgeous, and as ghoulish in the subject matter, as you’d expect. Full frontal nudity for both women and men are to be found here, typically in the grip of Abul himself or his servitors. There is no printer-friendly option, so beware if you want to print this out.
The vast majority of the book, just over 75% of it, are narrative in nature; that is, it’s not so much about game mechanics as it is about story and background. This is something I suspect that some gamers may feel divided over – if you’re a gifted storyteller, you may not appreciate that there’s roughly eight pages of game statistics, with the rest being a story that you could have made yourself. On the other hand, if you prefer villains with a highly fleshed-out background, villains with complex motivations and detailed origin stories, you might find this invaluable. I tend towards the latter stance, but your mileage may vary.
The story of Abul Khared himself is an exploration of the descent into madness. A scientist who lost his family in the Depravity War, his search for the ones responsible came to a bitter end when he realized that he could find them but lacked the power or resources to harm them. Unfortunately, things became far worse for Abul from there.
The results of his impotent quest for revenge motivated Abul to begin forcibly evolving himself, and the results are chronicled in a series of in-character diaries throughout the book. These are broken up by out-of-character (that is, meta-game) text wherein the author analyzes and expounds upon what it is that Abul is going through.
Abul’s slow descent is a surprisingly gripping read, and the expository text does a good job of highlighting just what it is that he’s facing as he continues the process. There are some (as the author calls them) “high concept” in this, as Abul’s story is interlaced with science fiction; admittedly, it plays rather fast and loose with quite a bit of the sci-fi, but I don’t see that as a bad thing – what’s important is the character reactions, not the actual means used to provoke them.
Of course, this means that the book is more story than it is game supplement. While there are game statistics for the Nightmare, as well as its servitors, and even some new powers and the creature’s base of operations, that’s the sum total of it, plus a few adventure seeds. Ideas for using Abul Khared in your game are given, but I was rather surprised how the author had very few specifics regarding the “how” of having PCs fight him – I used to think that this was sloppy game design, but lately I’ve been rethinking that stance. The more free-form kind of role-playing, concerned more with creativity at the table than with carefully charted numerical modifiers, is clearly being referenced here; given that, the author’s very general brand of advice makes perfect sense.
Ultimately, the Nightmare of Abul Khared is one that we get to experience along with the eponymous characters, being walked through little-by-little his descent into something more, and less, than human. It’s only when the Nightmare is fully revealed are we presented with it in terms of an RPG, with a set of stats and some nonspecific advice on how to use it. Take from that what you will, but I personally enjoyed it quite a bit – this is a Nightmare that, used properly, your PCs will never forget confronting.
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Admittedly, I was reluctant to buy this one... I'd finally figured since I've pretty much bought all the other Stuff To Beat Up items that I'm aware of, I'd get this one as well... And trust me, this is well worth the price!
The Nazis come in a wide variety, as some other customers have said, and the shinobi (I prefer this world over "ninja") are very interesting. This is a versatile pack that really does have some excellent variety in the nazis' uniforms, and some very exotic weapons for the ninja such as tanto/aiguchi, ninja-to, nunchaku, a multitude of chainweapons, and some kind of pole-arm I can't identify. even so, this is an excellent purchase, and the only thing I regret about it, is that I didn't buy it sooner! XD
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Truth be told, I'm surprised that these aren't rated higher by other customers. I've been very impressed with the armor styles, and hope to see more!
Keep up the great work!
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In a role-playing game like Hot Chicks, where sex and violence sit side-by-side (and are oftentimes the same thing), the use of tentacle adversaries was most likely inevitable. However, that doesn’t make them any less compelling, or disturbing, as antagonists. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways to make them MORE disturbing as well. Which brings us to their set-piece Tentacle Madness.
I call this a “set piece” because this product sits halfway between being a supplement and an adventure. While it thoroughly describes a single location and its inhabitants, it’s also quite clearly meant to be an adventure locale, which your heroes can invade to beat the bad guys and get some glory. Tentacle Madness gives you the tools you need to thoroughly build up what’s here so that your PCs can tear it down.
The book is fairly substantial at being a forty-two page PDF. The book has copy-and-past enabled, and comes with full (albeit non-nested) bookmarks. Of course, it hits the regular high bar for Dakkar Unlimited products, having almost all of its interior art be full-color CG images, alongside the odd black-and-white line-scale art. There’s no printer-friendly version, which is something of a loss not because you’d likely want a version without the pictures (after all, this is a game called “Hot Chicks”), but rather because this is likely to put at least a moderate strain on your printer as it is.
Tentacle Madness sets itself up as something out of a horror movie (albeit one of the porny ones). We’re introduced to the Sunny Rest Mental Care Facility through a combination of an in-character narrative revolving around a new inmate named Trishia, and metagame prose directed at the Game Master (helpfully, the in-character material is in italics while the metagame text is in a normal font). The book has no chapters per se, instead being divided into various sections by a series of headers.
Ostensibly a sanitarium, we’re quickly shown that Sunny Rest is a “normal” mental health care facility only insofar as outside appearances are concerned. The veneer quickly falls away as the book progresses – the only “treatment” that patients receive at Sunny Rest is a combination of strange drugs being injected into them and being manually masturbated to orgasm a large number of times a day. If right now you’re rolling your eyes or snickering that that doesn’t sound so bad, the book does a good job of making it clear that this is rape, and not something the inmates enjoy.
The situation grows steadily more horrifying from there. Slowly, we’re introduced to how the nurses there aren’t so much health care workers as they are tentacle monsters, maintaining their (and the facility’s) normal appearances with powerful illusions. Likewise, the drugs and forced sex aren’t just their idea of a good time – they all serve to prepare their victims for their “final procedure,” after which time they’re allowed to leave the facility. Of course, this last treatment presents the full reason why this book has “madness” in its title.
Roughly a third of the book is character sheets for the various people at Sunny Rest, including the so-called staff as well as poor Tricia. Full maps are given, though there are no room-by-room descriptions beyond a general overview of the facility’s defenses (e.g. how tough the walls are, the locks on the windows, etc. Adventure seeds that could get your PCs involved are provided. And of course, the book makes sure to end with a full-page picture of the “staff” in their human guises, completely naked (unlike the picture on the RPGNow storefront, there are no tentacles obscuring the naughty bits) – fan service at its finest.
If there’s a flaw in Tentacle Madness, it’s that it isn’t quite sure what sort of book it wants to be, straddling the line awkwardly between being, as mentioned before, a supplement and an adventure. The back-story, for example, is interesting, but there’s virtually no way to present it to the PCs (though the manner of showing how the threat extends beyond Sunny Rest is very artfully handled). Similarly, the abbreviated description of the actual rooms of the facility (and standard adventure tropes like boxed read-aloud text) make this less than an actual adventure, per se.
Ultimately, what’s here will largely depend on the strength of an individual GM’s presentation. The most obvious way to go about this is to have the PCs be inmates here, but that’s seriously stacking the deck against them, considering how much of a disadvantage the inmates are kept at. Still, these aren’t problems that an experienced GM can’t overcome; it’s just going to take some deftness. Otherwise, your PCs will have their work cut out for them in overcoming the Tentacle Madness.
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A fascinating supplement. The Fema Su are a departure from the usual antagonistic role of aliens coming to Earth. Its nice to have some aliens who actually have some positive feelings about us. Their history is fascinating and quite original, and they have a nice mix of powers and abilities to make things interesting. I look forward to using them in my games.
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It’s not often that I find myself wishing that I could assign a product a sixth star on a five-star scale. While I’ve reviewed a lot of products that were five-star worthy, there’ve been only a half-dozen or so where I felt that five out of five was too small to truly indicate just how good I thought they were. Dakkar Unlimited’s Hot Chicks supplement Wishtaker is one of those books – a merit it earned because it managed to do something that very, very few RPG books have ever done.
It scared me.
This isn’t to say that Wishtaker left me quaking in fear. I didn’t throw up, or run around turning on the lights. Rather, I came away from this book feeling disturbed. Unsettled. Wishtaker was uncomfortable because it presented a horrific picture that, despite being fictitious, was perturbing to contemplate. For a book or a movie to do that is hard; for an RPG supplement to do it is far more difficult, and for that I have to give Wishtaker mucho props.
A forty-page supplement for the Hot Chicks RPG, Wishtaker makes reference to a number of other supplements from the game line. However, virtually none of them are truly necessary to use this product (one small but important exception, however, is Yiffy, Yaoi, and Yahooey, which details the Spirit Claw attack that Wishtaker uses). It was disappointing that there were no bookmarks here, as those would have been helpful in quickly navigating through the book’s many sections.
The artwork is uniformly the CGI artwork that Dakkar is known for, and its copious here. It should go without saying at this point that there is full-frontal nudity in the pictures. However, there’s nothing truly graphic in the illustrations – while there are plenty of images of people restrained and about to be tortured, none of the artwork actually shows the torture taking place (notwithstanding seeing a woman being de-cerebrated). Of course, the artwork doesn’t need to show the actual torture to be spooky.
Wishtaker is a product about the genesis and operations of the character of the same name. Originally one of the servitor wishbringer robots from Villian-Net (q.v. the eponymous sourcebook) that was attacked by a slimey (from YYY), Wishtaker is something new, and even she doesn’t understand exactly what she is or why she is driven to do what she does.
And what she does is torture people. Sadistically, on a physical, mental, emotional, and sexual level. There’s nothing she won’t do to cause someone pain, and she’s constantly looking for new ways to cause discomfort. From making sure they’re restrained naked to taunting them about what she’s doing to their loved ones to denying them even the knowledge of why she’s doing this to them, Wishtaker exists to torture.
What makes this character so frightening, however, is her demeanor and motivation. Someone who tortures for personal reasons (e.g. vengeance) is driven by something understandable that can be used against them, but is more likely to hit you where it hurts. Someone who tortures for utterly impersonal reasons (e.g. a mad scientist) doesn’t attack you on a personal level; the torture can be horrific, sure, but not truly violating, even though there’s less of a level on which you can appeal to them and reason with them. Wishtaker manages to combine the worst aspects of being both personally and not personally invested in hurting you – she makes sure the torture is specific to what’ll cause you maximum suffering, without offering any chance of talking her down (though she’ll happily act like you can, just to yank that hope away from you later).
Even death isn’t an option, as Wishtaker can quickly and easily repair physical damage, until she’s ready to remove your brain and put it in a jar so that you can endlessly suffer complete sensory deprivation, save for those instances where she connects her mind to yours, just to see how much your sanity will warp to avoid another endless bout of nothingness.
Wishtaker, in other words, seems like a perfect blend of all of our post-modern fears of suffering at the hands of a sadistic lunatic. Every “torture porn” film, every news report about a serial rapist-killer, every comic book indulgence about what an immoral super-villain could use their powers to do to their victims that an ordinary person couldn’t…all are incarnated in Wishtaker. Even when the book tells us the real reason why Wishtaker is doing what she’s doing, it only serves to make her more horrifying, as the underlying reason for her very existence is something people don’t like to abide. I won’t ruin the revelation here, but needless to say, it’s excellently done.
Way back when I reviewed Inner Darkness, I conveyed that I didn’t think it was horrifying enough, being mostly RPG stats. Wishtaker, which is mostly exposition with only a few stats (the most being Wishtaker’s character sheet) is the polar opposite of that, and it works masterfully. Now, I can only imagine how you’d use this in a game – since Wishtaker enjoys preying on adventurers most, and what she does to her captives is monstrous and horrific – but if you’re playing in a Hot Chicks game, then your players have likely come to terms with that already.
Wishtaker is the most frightening villain I’ve ever seen for an RPG. If you think your players can handle it, and that you can do her justice, let her bring new levels of horror and pain to your Hot Chicks game. Just be warned…she’ll take your wishes and then some.
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Any production has ideas that get left on the proverbial (though sometimes literal) cutting room floor. While there once was a time when such things disappeared altogether, nowadays it usually gets presented somewhere. DVDs have their bonus features, graphic novels have sketch pages, and RPG materials…well, presumably they get reused somewhere down the line. Sometimes though, not often but sometimes, there’s enough left over to make a whole new book just out of the cut material.
Welcome to the Depravity War Companion.
A 76-page supplement for the Hot Chicks RPG, the Depravity War Companion doesn’t technically *require* you to have Inner Darkness 2: The Depravity War…but it really helps. A lot. The best way to summarize this book is that it’s the RPG version of a movie’s commentary track on the DVD; using this without having read Inner Darkness 2 is likely to be somewhat confusing.
The book opens up by noting that their books sometimes have too much artwork to squeeze into them, and that in this case there was so much that it was a shame not to share it all, hence this product. It’s an interesting take on making an RPG book – and a surprisingly frank one, if nothing else – particularly since the designers felt little need to round out the pictures with actual game mechanics. Some slight discussion of the rules creeps up here and there, but it’s only incidental. This book’s text is simply the author talking to us about his characters, and what’s going on with them.
Needless to say, the book is resplendent with artwork, almost all of which is in the full color CG style that’s Dakkar Unlimited’s signature style. There are a few black and white pencil sketches though, which seem oddly out of place alongside the rest of the illustrations. To be fair, some of the CG material is recycled from Inner Darkness 2, but the vast majority of it is new (though some of it is the same picture from a different angle).
The major technical complaint I have with this book is that there’s no easy way to navigate through it, besides just scrolling. The lack of bookmarks here is really inexcusable, since there’s a table of contents (without hyperlinks) for the book’s clearly-defined sections.
So what does this book cover? Exactly what was in Inner Darkness 2. There are sections on each of the three major villain factions, and a quick overview of the heroes who got pretty well wiped out in the framing fiction for the aforementioned book. There’s also a section examining how the bad guys go about invading and abducting people, and a concluding chapter on what happens to those so victimized. Almost every page has a large, beautiful illustration, with the narration running along the space left at the bottom. This is as much an image gallery as it is an overview of the major players in the Depravity War.
Make no mistake, the book isn’t for the faint of heart, either. While never truly explicit (in that there’s no gore or sex actively depicted in the artwork), the book doesn’t shy away from the darker nature of its villains. These are the guys who play towards what we fear, namely sessions of physical, psychological, and sexual torture, which are often carried out in such a way as to keep the victims not only in a state of suspended terror, and also alive, for as long as possible. The text makes no bones about thoroughly presenting what these guys do (though, like the artwork, it doesn’t revel in it).
Of course, you likely knew that if you’d already read through Inner Darkness 2, but that doesn’t make it any less skin-crawling to read about.
Overall, this book is something of an extra to its parent work. If you want some added insight into the major players of the Depravity War, and the people it affects, this book will do some good. I’ve knocked a star off due to the lack of bookmarks and the all-but-total lack of game material; there’s nothing wrong with an art book, and I like art books with commentary, but I went into this thinking it had game stats – that it doesn’t is something the book’s sales page needs to make clearer. Having said that though, this book is one that will let you peer even deeper into the darkness within the world of Hot Chicks.
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Ok, first of all, ignore the cheesy title. I think it's designed to get your attention more than anything else (it certainly got mine, except in a head shaking way.) But it quickly intrigued and soon after enthralled me.
This is a great game that you can easily get into without being overloaded with a new system to learn. It's easy to learn and adapts to all situations well. It has everything you need to help tell your stories and make them just like over the top blockbuster movies with martial arts, super powers, cybernetics, psionics, guns, explosions and diamond encrusted, gold plated space station inhabiting, endless wave of minion commanding, bad guys.
The premise of the game has been explained in other reviews so I won't go into that other to say I was hooked on it from the start.
I very much recommend it. It's great fun which is really what you want in a RPG experience.
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