Blast From The Past

So how are my new year's resolutions going? Well, not that great. Our VP total so far is 0.75 (and that's counting the first article of the year, which I will gladly do).

Hail nerdlingers!

This post I'm going to talk about something near and dear to my heart: Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition.

2nd edition existed between 1993 and 1998 and was the first version of 40k I played. I played it for two years before 3rd edition came out, and it was my favorite edition of Warhammer 40,000. When 2nd edition ended I was disappointed. I liked the wackiness and the detail that the game had, and I wasn't as ready to dispense with the psychic phase or the movement characteristic as others. However, I was a kid whose hobby was being fostered at a Games Workshop retail store, and when you game there you game with what's current. So I adopted 3rd edition and played the vast majority of my 40k games, to this day, in that edition.

Over the years I still took my 2nd edition codices and rulebooks off the shelf and flipped through them, and I still collected anything from that period that I didn't already have, but it wasn't until 2006 that I managed to get a game of it in again. From 2004–2007 I worked at the same Games Workshop that I had frequented, and a regular customer—who I had known since the days of 2nd edition—offered to indulge me in a 1500 point game of 2nd edition. I had a ton of fun, and it brought back a lot of good memories, but it never went past that one game.

Now it's 2016, and minding my own business, plugging away at the independent games shop I work at now, I am suddenly pulled into the black hole that is my friends' curiosity. Three friends, none of whom have ever played 2nd edition, are now curious to give this game a try. Of course, I am completely happy to oblige, and have generously offered my house, terrain, and rulebooks for a game that will occur this Wednesday.

This will be me and my friends.

Here's the set-up: There will be four players organized into two teams of 2000 points (1000 points each). Myself and Gopaul will control the enigmatic eldar (he will bring Harlequins), and Sam and Kiel will control the stalwart Imperium (Ultramarines and the Inquisition). We're treating the army selection a little differently than rules as written (RAW). To facilitate my friend's Grey Knights army (which has been a legit army for four editions) we're going to allow the Imperial Agents army to be it's own army instead of purely an allied force. So 0-50% Characters, 25%+ Squads, and 0-50% Vehicles. Each side will be one 2000 point force.

I'll insist that we use Mission and Strategy Cards (we'll of course be removing "Virus Outbreak"), and that the Mission Card for each side is drawn randomly. I toyed with the idea of keeping the missions secret, but "Guerrilla War" is kind of hard to do that without tipping one's hand, so we'll announce them after we've drawn them. I'm vetoing Virus grenades, but not Vortex grenades, 'cause they're fun, and Virus grenades really aren't. We'll also be using the Dark Millennium victory charts, the full psychic phase rules, and only playing four turns (not three or five as per the random table).

So what will I expect? I really don't know. The last time I seriously looked at 2nd edition was a decade ago, and while I've toyed with the idea of playing it again during that period, it's never gone further than taking the Dark Millennium box off the shelf and giggling over the psychic cards. I'll tell you a couple things, though: I'm looking forward to the psychic phase, and I am not looking forward to the close-combat phase.

As a 12-year old when 3rd edition came out I lamented that they could've done the transition better. I had this genius idea that they should've just kept 2nd edition the way it was, but use the 3rd edition close combat and bike rules, toned-down characters, and used the Warhammer Fantasy Battle 6th edition magic dice mechanic for the psychic phase and BAM! It would've been the perfect miniatures game. This, of course, is just reinforcing the fact that I hate the 2nd edition close-combat mechanics (outside of Necromunda, and Gorkamorka, of course).

So you must all be curious as to what I'll be taking. Here's my list:
Characters
1 Farseer (laspistol, rune armor, seer runes, Eldar spirit stones) - 220
1 Exarch (laspistol, exarch armor, firepike, fast shot) - 100
1 Exarch (laspistol, exarch armor, mandiblaster helmet, chainsword, shuriken pistol, fighting fury) - 59
Squads
4 Fire Dragons (meltaguns, laspistols, fire dragon aspect armor) - 112
4 Striking Scorpions (shuriken pistols, chainswords, mandiblasters, striking scorpion aspect armor) - 104
16 Guardians (lasguns, mesh armor) - 176
Support
1 Falcon Grav Tank (pulse laser, heavy plasma gun, twin-linked shuriken catapults, targeters) - 228
Total: 999

The whole shebang.

Guardians with lasguns?! Getouttaheeeere!

Farseer

Fire Dragons

Striking Scorpions

Looks like I got some painting ahead of me. I'll post a battle report next week replete with pictures!

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Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix Vancouver 2016

Hey all!

Today I'll be at the Magic: the Gathering (MTG) Grand Prix Vancouver. It's a limited format (sealed deck)—which I absolutely love—and it's nine rounds of sweet, sweet, Magic action.

If you want to see any pictures I'll take follow me on Instagram (steelrabbit). If you want to read anything I may say in 140 characters or fewer, follow me on Twitter (@carminlive). If you want to see what others are saying then follow #gpvan on Twitter.

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O brave new year, That has such games in't

I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions—they tend to just get forgotten—but a fun activity a friend and I do at the end of every year is make gaming-based resolutions for the coming one. Now I can't remember too many that I've actually followed up on, but I figure I have a clever mental gymnastic routine to make sure that this year I complete as many as I can.

I figure if I treat the resolutions like victory conditions in a game, I'll try my hardest to complete them. I'll assign each goal a point value ("VP" for Victory Points), and then create a table that determines a loss/victory score at the end. At the end of 2016 we'll see how well I've done. It's with this thought obfuscating logic in my brain that I present the following list:

1. Blog more (0.25VP/post)
Of course this is something I say almost every post after a month or so of inactivity (the average length between posts on this blog, I reckon), but let's try and get at least four posts a month—that's one a week.

2. Paint 1000pts of Capitol for Warzone (6VP)
For as huge a fan of Warzone and Mutant Chronicles as I am I sure don't have a lot of painted figures for it. I must admit, Prodos Games makes a fine model, but some of them are difficult to paint due to excess detail (a weird complaint, I admit), or just strange casting (I still have first wave Kickstarter figures. The sculpts and castings have improved since then). I'm hoping to overcome these shortcomings and get 'er done!

3. Run a three-session Mutant Chronicles campaign (2VP)
I should be getting my Mutant Chronicles 3rd edition book in the mail in spring, and I'd love to run a small arc (or longer if my group likes it).

4. Play through the Age of Sigmar Path to Glory campaign (10VP)
Black Library released an Age of Sigmar Chaos campaign as part of their 2015 advent calendar special, and I managed to convince three other people to join me in it (one player for each Chaos god). I'd love to go from start to finish in this thing, but I've had many a campaign flop so that's why the points value of this victory condition is so high.

5. Speaking of campaigns: Run a Kings of War campaign (8VP)
This goal has a pretty high VP as well, mostly for the same reasons as the last one, but a little lower because I have so many more KoW opponents than AoS, but it's still a campaign so that could just end up nowhere.

6. Attend at least one KoW and Star Wars: Armada tournament (2VP ea. for KoW; 4VP ea. for SW:A)
This year I'm going to get into Star Wars: Armada. I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, but I am feeling the bug (probably because of the new movie and the fact that I travelled to Japan this December and watched Episodes I–III on the plane (don't judge)). I also really like the SW:A rules and have a plethora of opponents. The score is higher for SW:A because I actually have to build a fleet to play, while I have tons of KoW-compatible stuff.

7. Paint an elf Kings of War army (12VP)
From start to finish, 2000pts. I already have the models purchased and primed, I just need to paint 'em!

8. Play four new mid-level Eurogames this year (2VP ea.)
By "mid-level Eurogames" I mean Kennerspiel winners, or higher (e.g., Istanbul, Serenissima, etc.). This is one per season (and I want it to include 2016's Kennerspiel winner).

9. Play a serious game of Battlelore 2nd Edition (4VP)
By "serious" I mean a game against someone who's also played a handful of games and will give me a run for my money.

10. Just to make it an even ten: Run The Enemy Within Campaign for WFRP 1st or 2nd Edition (15VP)
This is a big one, but I have a willing role-play group. We just need the time to fit it in.

Victory Points Chart:*
0–12: Draw
13–20: Minor Victory
21–40: Solid Victory
41–82: Major Victory
83+: Massacre!
*Based on the Warhammer 6th Edition Victory Points Chart (pg. 198)

Let's see how well I've done on December 31st, 2016!

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Back to BASEics

Clever title, I know.

As you'll remember from this post—which briefly chronicled my efforts to work on a gaming project every day—I actually have been working on stuff daily. I haven't really taken any pictures of any of it because it's been a lot of subtle stuff that will bring my Khorne Bloodbound to completion. To be honest, I've mostly only had a chance to sit down and pick at my figures, working on a layer or a color at a time then cleaning my brushes and turning off the ole paint light.

Well recently I decided to bite the bullet, take the plunge, go for broke, and re-base my Warhammer Chaos army onto round bases. Ever since Age of Sigmar came out I've had the idea of doing a Slaaneshi war band that's out in Ulgu (the Realm of Shadow), looking for Slaanesh. The idea would be that I would build up a Slaaneshi war band and chronicle it on this blog through a narrative. Originally the project had me re-buying a lot of the stuff I already had in my Warhammer army, but that's ludicrous; my stuff's already done. The major problem was that they're all on squares, and I believe that models objectively look better on round bases. So I'm committing to having my Chaos models on rounds now that AoS is the new Warhammer.

Here are some pictures of my stuff so far:

I also thought I'd share what guidelines I'm using to re-base my models ('cause there is a method to my madness). Every Warhammer model is supplied with a square base. Because squares of a certain perimeter take up more area than circles of a certain perimeter I've decided to re-base all my figures one up from the bases they were supplied with. Citadel provides a really impressive range of bases, and I figure by using the rounds and ovals that are just slightly bigger than the squares the models came with, I can have a consistent and fair basing pattern.

For example: 20x20mm squares become 25mm rounds; 25x25mm squares become 32mm rounds; 40x40mm squares become 50mm rounds; and 50x50mm squares become 60mm rounds.

Cavalry and chariot bases are a little trickier, but use the same principles. Citadel has a set of oval bases which look great with cavalry on them. 50x25mm cavalry bases become 60x35mm ovals; 75x50mm monstrous cavalry bases become 90x52mm ovals; 100x50mm chariot bases become 105x70mm ovals.

Of course heroes I want to be particularly impressive-looking. To do this, I've decided to one up them from my new basing scheme. Therefore dark elf heroes—for instance—will go on 32mm rounds, and chaos warrior, and beastmen heroes will go on 40mm rounds. The same principle will work for cavalry heroes.

These are not hard-and-fast rules and I've already broken them on a couple occasions: My Lord of Slaanesh is mounted on a 60mm round even though he came with a 50x50mm square and he's a hero, so he should be going on an 80mm round base by my tortured logic. I found this to be too big for the figure and left a lot of empty space around him. In this case I broke my hero rule because he's already rather impressive, what with being on a super-tall daemonic mount and having a tall banner pole.

Also chaos daemons already come with round bases for use in 40k. For these I've decided to just use the rounds and ovals that come with the figures. So for the most part my daemonic infantry will be on 25mm rounds, greater daemons will be on 60mm rounds, and my seekers of Slaanesh will go on those odd 70x25mm ovals.

Anyway, I thought you might be interested in these guidelines for basing in the new Age of Sigmar. I know the rules have confused a lot of people, but we have to get comfortable with the fact that the new game puts a lot of power in our hands. Provided we work within some reasonable guidelines and maintain consistency, I don't think we'll have many problems. Therefore I present my basing guidelines with the intent that they can inspire you to do the same. The spirit of my basing rules is to have an aesthetically pleasing base for the figure, not to gain an unfair advantage by basing my figures to maximize the amount of models I can get into combat, or some other beardy shenanigans.

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Age of Sigmar Podcast

Just a quick post here, gamers.

I've been looking for more Age of Sigmar-positive media and forums lately and came across these blokes (am I saying that right?) from England (or the UK, or whatever you chaps call it).

It's a podcast called Heelanhammer (whose meaning is lost to me. You say you guys invented the language?), and it's great. It's very well put together, the hosts are informative and worth listening to, and I find it delightful (or as the British call it: football).

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Vancouver's First Kings of War Tournament

Yesterday I had the great pleasure to play in the first Kings of War tournament held in Vancouver, BC.

Vancouver's always been a pretty hot city for Warhammer, with very dedicated groups of tournament players willing to travel to various locations to compete. I say this because when 8th edition Warhammer ended there was—and still is—a schism in Vancouver's gaming community. Some people have moved on to Warmachine and Hordes, some people have gravitated deeper into 40k, or into SAGA and Bolt Action, while others (like myself) are very excited about Age of Sigmar (AoS).

Then there are some of us who hope that the majority of the old Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) crowd will want to play Kings of War (KoW) to sate their tournament needs. I'm actually glad AoS split the tournament crowd here. If it hadn't, I don't think I would've given KoW a second glance. I'm having loads of fun with AoS, but I also had a ton of fun at yesterday's KoW tournament. I think the two games compliment each other better than others realize.

Anyway, enough of my yammerin' about the crowd here; let's get into the tournament: It was put on by Wargaming Without Borders (WGWB), which is a charity event run by a combination of the three biggest clubs here in Vancouver: WCP, A-Club, and CHOP!. This year they ran the gamut of popular miniatures games, but eschewing AoS, they instead ran a KoW tournament.

The tournaments these clubs run are great. They often involve a great "soft score" element—that is to say, sportsmanship, painting, etc.—and they're very well-run. Some of these guys have been running tournaments for over a decade, so they're always tight. They tend to have amazing prize support, and this was no exception. They raffled off about a dozen prizes and I managed to get the new Khorne Bloodbound Battletome for AoS, which, as one of the more enthusiastic AoS players in the city, was fitting.

There were four games at 1500 points each, using the scenarios from the KoW book. There were twelve players and the overwhelming majority of the armies were painted, with so few exceptions that they could be counted on one hand.

Hilariously enough, when I first signed up I thought this tournament would be a bit of a cinch for me. I'm not the most competitive gamer, which often means that I get rocked in tournaments, but I had been playing lots of KoW, and had even begun playing well before anyone else in the city, so I thought I'd at least give my opponents a run for their money. As we'll see, this was not the case. I was surprised to see how much experience everyone had with this game. Two people even had glued their models to the movement trays! Which is something that I had only seen my friend Paul do (and he's been on the KoW band wagon since day one). I had a great time, and I definitely would do another one.

So let's look at some pics I remembered to take (sadly, while I was prepared to bring my camera, I instead forgot it in typical Carmin style, and had to rely upon my cellphone):

The only shot from my first game. I'm not going
to lie, I was a bit rough from a party I went to the
previous night, which is the only thing that could
explain my horrendous deployment. My opponent,
Vern, still played a solid game, but my deployment
didn't make it any harder for him. A loss for me.

My second game was against another Kingdoms
of Men army (this time, my good buddy Paul).
Our game ended as they usually do: closely. Had
we gone to a seventh turn (which is randomly
determined on a 4+ after the 6th turn) I would've
won. Sadly, none of the four games I played this
day went past 6 turns.

We played the "Loot" scenario from the rulebook.
The blue counters are loot counters.

I was feeling better this game, so took more pictures.

Best dice roll of the tournament. That's a troop
of ironwatch riflemen (rifledwarfs?) shooting. For
those that are wondering why I would document
even a good roll like this, I should let you know
that I am famous—amongst gamers in Vancouver
who know me—at having the worst rolls at the
most in-opportune times.

Game three against another dwarf army. This
one was hilariously the "Invade" scenario, which
meant that two dwarf armies had to get into each
other's deployment zones to score. 

This game was against my good buddy Calen.
A guy I've known for almost a decade. He's a
skilled gamer in almost any game he sits down to
play, and only lost one game this whole tournament.

This was the dumbest move I made all game
(or maybe Calen's smartest), which is going up
against a dwarf king with regeneration and De: 6+.
Needless to say, the dwarf berserkers were a minor
speed bump in Calen's path to victory.

Little tactical tip for those that are thinking about
getting into KoW: Units with De: 6+ are really
hard to kill. 

So that's it. Sadly, I forgot to document my fourth game which was the "Dominate" scenario against a Brotherhood army (KoW's version of Bretonnians). At the time I hadn't eaten and was starving. My brain was in no state to even think about gaming and had never played against—nor even considered—this army and the game was pretty much his. Still, he played a solid game, and had a really uniform-looking paint job.

Here are some observations about the game in general:
1) KoW is more relaxing to play in tournaments. WFB, and to a greater extent, Warmachine/Hordes always left me exhausted by the end of the day, unable to think or do much but pack up models and grab a drink in silence. This was not the case with this game. I could've easily played another one or two games that day before feeling wiped.

2) Games of KoW are quick. Paul and I have been playing with chess clocks and our games of 1500 points have come in at just over an hour. I never had a game go to time in this tournament.

3) Every time I play KoW I like it more and more. When I first looked at it, I thought it was silly, but felt that I had to try it. My first actual game felt boring. But every game after that has had me like it more and more.

4) KoW is a better tournament system than WFB ever was. I love(d) WFB. For years it was my favorite game, and I tried to become a better gamer with every game I played, but for tournaments it was too wacky; too much variance in both the army lists and what happened in game. This made it amazing for club or campaign play (which I think was its intent), but for tournaments, organizers had to create a list of exceptions and rules (again, I think this was its intent). KoW was designed to be a tournament game and I think it excels in this regard. I can game comfortably knowing that this will be my tournament game.

So there you have it: A glowing review from someone who loves AoS, doesn't play a ton in tournaments (though that may change), and at first didn't think much of KoW. If you have been thinking of trying this game out, and have fond memories of 6th or 7th edition WFB, you should give it a go (I mean, you already have the models, and the rules and army lists are free). And if you're ever in Vancouver, BC and your models are handy, pop by an event held by one of these groups. You won't be disappointed.

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Drunken Dwarfs

To keep in theme with the models I was painting, I began drinking beer and didn't stop until these four dwarfs were finished.

Here they are awaiting a gloss cote. When I play any edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle they act as markers for war machines to show that they can't fire this turn or next, and when I'm playing Kings of War, they're unit fillers for my horde of Ironclad.

Plus they're just great-lookin'.

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Here's What I Painted Today

So I don't post as much as I'd like. To remedy this, I'm going to do some "flash posts" where I post what I worked on, even if it was just a couple brush strokes, or a few adventure ideas.

I'm going to a Kings of War tournament in a couple weeks, and I need to beef up a couple units and paint some movement trays. I need to finish 16 models, and here are some drunken dwarves and a master engineer.

They're not done yet, but I'm gettin' there!

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Gen Con 2015 pt. 1

If any of you are interested at all you can follow my Gen Con exploits via Twitter (as you can with a million other people who are more interesting than I).

I'm @carminlive

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An Oldhammer Evening

Just a quick post before I jet off to Gen Con.

I've been running a D&D5 campaign for a bit, and I decided to have it culminate in a titanic battle. The fate of the north of our campaign world hung in the balance. The big question became: what system would we use to play this out?

-Would I use the Unearthed Arcana Battlesystem rules that Wizards put out? Needs more playtesting.
-Would I use the D&D Miniatures Handbook from 3rd edition? Maybe, but then I'd have to learn a new system and teach it to everyone.
-Would I use Warhammer? Sure! I mean, my entire game group is a bunch of Warhammer players, that would work wonderfully.

But which edition?

The answer, of course, was 3rd edition. I mean, it's got all the role-play trappings of the era, but built to be a miniatures war game. It was fun converting all my group's D&D characters, and their adversaries into Warhammer stats. I'd read everything for 3rd edition, but I'd never actually played it before. It would be both new and familiar to everyone.

I enlisted the help of two of my friends who weren't in the campaign to be the "ringers" and play the evil forces of hobgoblins and traitorous northmen. While the player characters (PCs) took on the roles of their characters and those they recruited to help preserve peace in the north. I'm pleased to say that the PCs won (despite being outnumbered by ~1000pts.). Though the wizard of the party did make a shady pact with the enemy to preserve his own skin.

I let the players add some role-play elements to the game, and I acted as game master which was a lot more fun that I thought. I'd never played an '80s wargame before, and I worried that the job of game master would be dull, but it was pretty great. Anyway, here are some pictures:

The prep.

Depoloyment (the pink cards in the center are traps, and decoys).

The clash in the center.

The frost giant pictured there was determined to be drunk at the
beginning of the game. Out of the two giants in the game he was
the only one to survive.

The dwarves held their own, that's for sure.

The LotR figures are "Empire soldiers," and the Mantic ghouls
are summoned lesser daemons.

The dwarves pursue the hobgoblins (represented by savage orcs)
through the forest.

The ogres were led by the cyclops warlord Kronar. He defeated
the fighter Corvinus (king of the north), but ultimately lost the war.

The real casualties of the battle. The beer was drunk by myself
and two others, while the bottles of cider were quaffed by the
gnome player.

Anyway, while Warhammer 3 had some weird and clunky rules (Vortex of Chaos is over-powered), it was filled with character, and we all had a great time! A perfect end to the campaign.

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