Whatcha Playin', Rabbit?

So today I had a couple games (tell us more!):

I owed a friend a game of Warhammer 40,000, much against my will. Not, of course, because of my friend (in fact were it not for him, I probably wouldn't have had a good time at all), but because I'm at odds with the game at the moment. For now, I'm content to not play the game until a new edition (which hopefully won't be that far off).

I also had a game of Dark Age. I'm play testing some stuff for the game, and while I'm not allowed to talk about what that stuff is, I can say that the game is so dialed, and entertaining, I can hardly tell that the play testing is akin to work (which, for anyone who's never play tested something, it kinda is).

I have a couple articles in the pipeline, that I hope to be able to do some justice to next week: One is an editorial on Warhammer 40,000 (I need to articulate my thoughts some more); another is a piece on Heavy Gear Blitz (followed by some project logs); a piece on Vampire: the Masquerade's 20th anniversary; an editorial on White Wolf's move to a "digital-first" format for publication; and of course, some Dark Age stuff (maybe a review).

That's a lot, no? Yes, not "no!"

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Flaming Wars

So I've been away for a while, but the gaming has not stopped. Oh no, nothing could be further from the truth. To say otherwise would be heresy (of the highest order).

What I wanted to touch upon was my impressions of Flames of War. I've never played Flames of War before Wednesday, despite my working in a shop that carries it for five years. This is quite unlike me, as I'm often head-first into a game before anyone else. I don't have any reason for not getting into it sooner; the simple fact is that I didn't. But now I did. So now we have this post:

A friend and I played a 1000pt Late War game with myself using an American Rifle Company, and him using a German Grenadierkompanie (complete with looted Sherman). Between the both of us we have an accumulated Flames of War (FoW) playtime of 0 hours, so we enlisted a friend of ours to sit there and teach us how to play.

There were surprisingly few bumps. Assaults took me by surprise in their deadliness; leaving you no saving throws, and let's not get too into defensive fire or I'll slip back into my PTSD. Suffice it to say a platoon of infantry who are dug-in should not fix bayonets and charge two Grenadier platoons (no matter how low their strength). Another thing that I found hard to manage was the placement of the stands. Stands block line of sight (LoS) to other stands, so yeah...

Overall, the game was great! At one point I referred to it as "40k that works." It's very 40k-ish in its structure: Movement phase, Shooting Phase, an Assault Phase wherein you get to make another charge move to get into base contact, and so forth. This is a tried and tested turn structure if not a little boring. It also uses d6s which can be described in a similar way. What I enjoyed about the system was the back and forth nature of the combat resolution: Roll to hit, roll to save, if the target's in hard cover and fails its save the firer rolls a Firepower check to take it out. Usually I prefer the last word (er - roll) to go to the defender (like the armor saves in Warhammer/40k) but this kept both players attentions at the table and not just as spectators. The fact that the roll to hits depends not on the firer's accuracy, but on the defender's ability to not get shot. Rather unique.

The game just flowed better than 40k and feels as though the units fit perfectly into the game as opposed to finding an awkward place to stick this unit or that. I will say that the game has a lot of rules, and that our first game took three hours. I'm sure that the more we get a handle on the rules, the faster things will go, and thankfully we didn't use anything too complex. However, I can see myself getting into a game with someone who breaks out something strange and we have to sit around while we figure out how to do a bombing run or something... Planes are another story that I'm staying the hell away from right now.

The game is great! If you've ever wanted to play a WWII game but you've been intimidated by the sheer amount of differing rules sets and miniatures, and scales, and blah, blah, then give this game a shot. I'm pretty keen on getting some new platoons and fleshing out my company, and getting some more games under my belt.

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Dark Age Apocalypse!

Just got my sticky mitts on a copy of the Core Rules for Dark Age Apocalypse! I'll be posting a review on it next week when I've read it.

As for this blog, my involvement has been sparse. I've been thinking some things over, and I'm going to get back into it, this time with a less strict schedule. I never followed my Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule much, so this time I'm just going to make an effort to publish something twice a week, whenever I've worked on something.

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And Here. We. Go.

Alright folks! It's 1:07am and I have to be up at 5:00am to catch my train. Follow my Twitter feed for infos on tha gamings (hopefully there will be Wi-Fi), and see you on Wednesday.

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WARMACHINE Tournament Journal: Part 4

So looks like I dropped the ball on this whole "Tournament Report" thing. It's such a shame, too because I've always wanted to chronicle my preparations for a tournament from start to finish. Next time I have to be more on top of posting. I know I say that all the time, but if I stop saying it, then you know I've given up entirely.

Anyway, things are progressing at a frantic pace here. Today I only left the house for a few hours to meet a friend for lunch, the rest of the time I spent painting. I finished five solos/warcasters. Tuesday is going to be the big one. Ideally I'd like to paint 10 Mage Hunters, 1 Mage Hunter Commander, 10 Dawnguard Sentinels, 1 Chimera, 1 Griffon, and 1 Wreck Marker. That's a tall order, even with my easy paint scheme. If I can do this, I'm set!

There's so much for me to report on! White Wolf's pre-orders for the 20th anniversary of Vampire: the Masquerade (of all things), my new obsession with Heavy Gear, Citadel Finecast, etc., etc. This will, unfortunately, all have to wait until next week when I return from Lock and Load in Seattle.

Speaking of which, I will try and be consistent with Tweets! That's right, I have a twitter account. The problem is that it will cost me dearly via roaming fees if I use 3G in the States, so I might have to sync up my phone with Twitter (something I wanted to avoid, because I'm a paranoid loon, and don't want a lot of my info getting out there). That way they'll just ding me on the 75¢ text fees.

In any event, you can view my Twitter feed here.

That's it for today. Check in on Wednesday with a report, then Friday I'll be off, so you'll have to check my Twitter feed after that.

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And We're Back

Whew! I'm back. I don't know why you all put up with me sometimes.

My trip south of the border was great! Went to Portland, went to Seattle, went to a lot of brewpubs (largest concentration of 'em in Portland), and bought some sweet stuff at Powell's City of Books (Including a German Rolemaster supplement that I had to get shipped 'cause it's an international order and you can't do those in-store).

I acquired the 2nd printing of the VOID 1.1 rulebook (the first time they reference it being "1.1"), I also got my mitts on the Warhammer 4th edition Battle Magic supplement, the Warhammer 5th edition Battles Book, a copy of the MERP 2nd edition collector's rulebook (in great condition), and a damaged copy of Ratspike (John Blanche is one of my favorite artists of all time) ALL WITHOUT SALES TAX!

Alright, back to the grind. I've got some stuff to talk about this week and next, and we're gonna begin tomorrow (Wednesday, fools) with an update on my WARMACHINE tournament preparedness, and a word or two about a sweet game of Warhammer I played with my friends (aww!). On Friday I'll have some words about the Citadel Finecast stuff that may or may not surprise you (depending on what you think of me).

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Gone Fishin'

Okay! I live.

Yet I'll be departing for the land of grunge and Fraser for eight days starting Monday. I'll be back posting on the 1st of June. I'll have some more WARMACHINE Tournament articles, some painting log pics, and something to say about Rolemaster and Middle-Earth Role Play.

See you Space Cowboy!

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WARMACHINE Tournament Journal: Part 3

So now I've stated my intention to enter this tournament, and I've described briefly (and not very thoroughly) the nature of the Master's Tournament; what I will attend to now is my army list: The Retribution of Scyrah.

As regular readers of this blog can attest, I love elves. Therefore it was a no-brainer that when Privateer Press unleashed the Iosans onto the Iron Kingdoms I'd take up their quest to rid the world of human wizards. As soon as the army was released I knew it would be my new favorite faction. The models look cool, the Mymidons look cool (keep your damn Gundam/Tau comments to yourselves, dammit!), and the backstory is rad as well.

So for the tournament I'm called upon to make three 50-point lists each with a different warcaster. To begin I think I'll draw from my existing collection of models for this faction:
+ Chimera
+ Griffon
+ Phoenix
+ Discordia
+ Manticore
+ Full unit of Mage Hunters (with UA)
+ Full unit of Dawnguard Invictors (with UA)
+ Ghost Sniper
+ House Shyeel Magister
+ Nayl
+ Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (No Quarter exclusive, thankyouverymuch!)
+ Arcanist
+ Mage Hunter Assassin
+ Dahlia Hallyr and Skarath
+ Kaylissa
+ Dawnlord Vyros
+ Garryth

What a list! So now I need to make three lists out of that. Well, primarily out of that; I'm not opposed to adding and subtracting things from that list.

How about this for starters:
+Kaylissa
++ Chimera
++ Griffon
++ Manticore
+Dahlia Hallyr
++Skarath
+ 10 Dawnguard Invictors
++ Invictor Officer & Standard
+ 10 Mage Hunter Strike Force
++ Mage Hunter Commander
+ Arcanist
+ House Shyeel Magister
+Mage Hunter Assassin
+ Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

That brings us to 57pts before Kaylissa's bonus.

I've always liked Kaylissa's huge amount of focus she brings, and her feat. She's my main caster for sure, and I'll probably use this list as my fall-back dependable list. The Manticore can pack a punch with its multiple shots and its high armor (especially for the points cost), and the Griffon is also nothing to sneeze at, what with its shield, reach and ability to add to its movement with focus. The Chimera, I've always liked because of a sneaky little plan I have (which actually doesn't come into play as much as you'd think) which involves the Chimera getting into combat with a medium-based figure and using its ability at the beginning of the following turn to move to the target's rear and make back attacks!

Mage Hunters I love, but have always had gripes about the lack of a combined range attack. However, I can't complain a lot about being able to shoot through stuff and ignoring all sorts of focus-based buffs on my target. They're squishy but they are pretty stealthy and can get where I wanted to be thanks to pathfinder and advance deploy.

I'm thinking for my 2nd list I'll use Garryth as my main caster and throw either the Griffon or the Chimera in with the Invictors to be marshaled. I'm not too keen on either, as they both make use of focus pretty well, but I'm leaning towards the Griffon as it would still allow me to do my sneaky tactic with the Chimera.

I don't know what I'll do with my third caster, but I'm tempted to get some House Shyeel Battle Mages and take Rahn as my main caster. I love his eight focus, but I'm not convinced by the Battle Mages… I could always opt for another unit of Mage Hunters as redundancies are always a good thing to have in case something backfires. I've always been temped by Houseguard units but I don't know if I can paint enough of them in time for the tournament.

The key (I figure) to understanding the Retribution and using them well is to get comfortable with the fact that they're going to be outnumbered. It's a sad fact of life, that I need to maximize the opportunities I'm given and try and avoid being surrounded. Before you mention it, spreading out isn't a good idea either; it can lead to the loss of flanks super-quickly as the unit that was dutifully guarding your right flank got eaten by some dumb Skorne elephant-beast, or crushed by some Khadorian brute!

This is my initial list. I'm going to paint it and play a whack-ton of games with it, weighing any advice given me with things I learn from my games in order to hone the list. After I'm relatively comfortable with what I have I'll begin to sub out some 'casters here and there.

This is what I have for now. I have a pretty good spread of opponents over most of the factions (Cryx and Protectorate will be hard to scrounge up), so I'll let you know what's up with my gaming. Of course, any advice you folks have for me will go a long way as well!

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P.S. I'm not too worried about anyone seeing my list in advance before the tournament. In fact, if you recognize me by what list I have on here at the tourney, say "hi!" It's good to know that my ramblings aren't just sailing into the void.

WARMACHINE Tournament Journal: Part 2

So I've been prepping for the tournament at Lock and Load, and part of that prep is to know what the hell I'll be walking in to. To begin, I looked up the rules for the Steamroller Tournament, and man is it intimidating.

Thirty-four pages of rules on a tournament? Interesting. I feel that I need to give as much attention to this document as I do to the other forcebooks. In all seriousness, it is a little daunting the amount of work that goes into a tournament. For instance, the tournament demands three army lists (each with a different caster) and they specify what kind of appendix list they'll use by stating that it will be "divide and conquer." Well, let's take a look at what that means:

"Divide and Conquer – The TO will announce the expected number of rounds to be played at the beginning of the tournament. Divide the number of rounds to be played by the required number of lists for each player. The result (rounded down) is the number of times each list must be played during the tournament. Such events should also use the X-Round Event variant, so players know the number of rounds they have to use each list. 

For example, if a tournament requires that each player brings two army lists and has four rounds, then each player would have to play each list twice (4 divided by 2). In this variant a player must inform the opponent if he has no choice of which warcaster or warlock he must play prior to the match." (Steam Roller 2011, pg. 29)

As you can see, I'll need the practice. Now why do I find this strange? Well, I've never been involved in a tournament that tries to balance out the odds so much. Now this is a good thing, and fits in with Privateer's ethos of creating balanced games that award the highest skill but it does feel a bit like I'm preparing for something that's way over my head. 

On the other side of the coin, Games Workshop tournaments that I've been to have been very straightforward: Warhammer 40,000 tournament. 1500pts. These are the lists you can choose from. No special characters. No Forge World. Here's the scenarios we'll be playing. Go.

Now, again, don't get me wrong, I relish the chance to compete in the Master's Tournament at Lock and Load, and I think such a detailed tournament document is fully in line with Privateer Press' style. It just means that I'll have to work harder to prep for this tournament than I've ever had to before.

Friday I'll go into my initial lists for the tournament. I'll need three of 'em, and with three different casters. Here's hoping I can get all this done by June.

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WARMACHINE Tournament Journal: Part 1

It all began on Friday, when I woke up early to register for events on the Lock and Load website. I noticed that after I had selected all I wanted to do, I still had a five-hour block on the Friday to fill. "Not a problem," I thought, "I'll just spend that time shopping or gaming at the open gaming area." Then it hit me: enter the tournament.

I had been hesitant to entering a WARMACHINE or HORDES tournament because I never thought myself good enough to even bother. After all, there are people out there who play every week, and know the combos in and out, and could probably wipe the tables with the remains of my pride and my models all the while laughing and moving on to the next opponent; another of his ilk. They will slap each other on the backs at the sight of my emotional de-pantsing and get to the sort of gaming of a calibre beyond my sight.

But I had been playing for just as long as anybody when it came to WARMACHINE. And besides, it's free. If I lose, I've still had some games. It's time to push the envelope.

So here begins my Tournament Journal, something I've wanted to do on this blog for a long time. It just so happens that most tournaments in the world are on weekends, and those are the days when I work. So what will be the makeup of this ongoing journal? It will chronicle the building, painting, and testing of the army I will bring to the tournament. It will also chronicle the re-building, extra painting, and further testing of that army as I refine its make-up and structure. It will take you on a journey from the beginnings of a tournament army, to its conclusion at the tournament, itself.

My army of choice: The Retribution of Scyrah. It's no secret that I love elves, and elves with giant robots, in one of my favorite miniatures games is a no-brainer. This is but an intro to what I hope to be an insightful and interesting set of articles on tournament gaming.

Stay tuned! Wednesday and Friday will reveal the particulars of the tournament and the army.

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