Geekcentricity

New site

2010-04-21T01:24:00.000-07:00

I have moved to a blog that China won't block

http://gaming.elasticpeople.net/

Moving to a new site

2009-11-01T21:17:00.001-08:00

I am going to move this site to one of my own. The problem is that the government of the country I live in does not like Blogspot and so it is usually blocked. Sometimes I can get through, but not reliably enough to warrant staying here. I will try and make another post to mention my new site when I get it running and can get through again.

Xerxis and Reznik both die

2009-07-27T00:52:00.000-07:00

Martin and I managed to get in one last game before my miniatures are packed away where I can't sneak them out again. We put 750 point armies on the table and decided to fight with no real objectives other than to smash each other.

I was handling the early game quite well. I tied up his left flank with three Vengers, while the real fight took place in the center.

My Strategy hinged around the Guardian which was a mistake. I forgot why the Guardian had been gathering dust for a year and a half, but I was quickly reminded; it's a piece of junk. It might be worthwhile in Mk2, but while 3 damaged systems can take out a jack, a heavy jack with an Arc node is just not worth fielding. Martin's heavy Infantry didn't quite fill in half the boxes on the Guardian's damage template, but because three systems were disabled, the jack was disabled.

Mid game I was losing and trying to consolidate. Vilmon, The Seneschal and my Paladin were dead, as was the Guardian and the Vengers were looking shaky. it was then that martin made his mistake. He left Xerxis exposed. Reznik branded him a heretic and the Redeemer fired missiles and killed him. Martin's beasts went wild and suddenly the advantage was mine.

I also made a mistake and left a charge lane open to the Ancestral guardian, who swooped in with Five soul tokens and cut Reznik to ribbons.

The fight now came down to Martin's Immortals against my Choir, Zealots and Avatar. The Avatar slowly chopped through the Immortals, who proved (true to their namesake) very hard to kill. Finally my Zealots got there and rained fire bombs down on the Immortals. End of Battle.

My strategy was not sound. I consolidated from the mid game setbacks well, but my victroy hinged on Martin leaving his boss in an unprotected position.

Possibly my last game for a few months

2009-07-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

I defeated Martin yesterday, but it was a very narrow win. We were savagely contesting the objective ( a farm house) and I managed to batter my way to his warlock. When I got off the killing blow he had only two venators left and I had a damaged Catigator and Kreoss still there.

I didn't get to play Tom as we had a fourth (Jack) who played against him.

Get out of the way Vilmon

2009-07-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I play my last game of Warmachine for quite a while. Tuesday the miniatures and modeling gear get packed away for the big move and won't be available to me until October... bummer. So 500 pts Mk 1 vs Tom's Cygnar and Martin's Skorne. Do I think I have made the most competitive army? No. Am I happy with my choices? Very.

I love the fluff that goes with Menoth and in my fevered imagination I see a kind of rivalry between the Knights Exemplar and the Paladins of the Order of the Wall. So tomorrow's force is based around knights (only 2 models are not Knights) on the march to war with Vilmon tagging along to see what all the fuss is about.

Here is a crappy snap of the models I am using. Unfortunately the Vengers are nowhere near finished, but they are ok (except the bases) for the table.

4 corner hardcore match

2009-06-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

Martin, Tom and I were set to play a small round robin tournament on Monday night with each of us playing both the others. However we got a fourth player (Dylan) and decided to play hardcore rules with all four of us on the same table at the corners. We put a castle ruin in the middle of the board as a way to earn victory points and went at it.

Tom headed for me, as did Dylan and i was lucky enough to charge Tom's Hunter with my Vengers and kill it. That made him cautious and he slowed down his advance. I withdrew from the fight happily, knowing that there was no forest between me and the cryx and a fight was inevitable.

The game now became Menoth vs. Cryx at one end and Menoth vs. Cygnar at the other.

I got the better of Dylan and managed to cast Brand of Heresy on Terminus and then charged my Castigator into him. It still took three hits, but I eventually eliminated the Lich Lord.

At the other end of the field Tom and Martin slugged it out and while they both did huge damage to each other, Martin's Avatar got the edge over Ol' Rowdy. When the turns were up, we counted up our victory points from each turn with a model within 3 inches of the ruin and then subtracted our lost VPs from it, giving us our final score.

Dylan was on -13, Tom on -9, martin on -5 and I had a grand total of 1. Yay me. Next time I probably would not want to do victory points that way.

Speed painting

2009-06-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

We had a great game last night. Four players, hold the objective, hardcore. Toward the end when I was in the clear I started painting a miniature to demonstrate dry brushing to Dylan who was our Cryx player. I was originally just going to do the shoulders to demonstrate how it looks with steel and bronze, but Tom and Martin were using up their full seven minutes every turn, so I used four of those turns to completely speed paint the miniature. I am very happy with what is a 28 minute paint job. If I had access to it again I would clean it up a bit, but as is it is (IMHO) fine for the table.

Here is the photo. It is the Cryx Jack in the middle.

Vallejo paint issues

2009-06-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

The first problem is that within a few months the name of the paint has rubbed off, so when referring to old painting notes I sometimes got stuck remembering which is which. I have remedied this by writing the name on the side of the bottle in marker.

The second and far more annoying problem is when the paint nib comes off inside the lid when you are opening it. In the picture the nib is off, but next to the lid.

Normally I notice when this happens, but a few times i have missed it and instead of squirting out a little blob of paint, I pour out a river. My latest misfortune was with my Dark Fleshtone. I poured out about a quarter of the bottle. What a waste.

I'm sure if i used other paints I would be able to compare problems. I remember how crap citadel paint used to be because of the lids gumming up. However at this point I only use Vallejo paint and overall I like it.

Playing Mk1 Warmachine

2009-06-12T04:44:00.000-07:00

So to play against Hordes on Monday night I have to play Mk1 rules again. It has been a while since I have played the old rules and I wonder how much of Mk2 will bleed over accidentally. I am going to try and get Gravus painted by Monday so I can use him. He seems pretty cool and it would be nice to have used him Mk1 at least one time.

Having a blog

2009-05-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes having a blog makes me feel like I have to post even when there is little to post about. So here goes.

I have painted a few miniatures over the last couple of weeks, but none of them are good enough that I would want to put their pictures up here. I have bought quite a few reaper miniatures and am very happy with them, although none are even primed yet. I also bought an Ariadna starter box for Infinity. I'm not sure I will play Infinity, I just wanted some good looking science fiction soldiers and they fit the bill.

Reasons to fail the May painting challenge

2009-05-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

I hardly ever go in for the painting challenges on any of the many forums that do them, but last week I decided to do one on www.rpg.net

The reason I don't do painting challenges is that I don't finish what I put in my vow. However it's not that I lack inspiration to paint, it's just that I paint things other than what I said I would. So here are some of the guys who this weekend have derailed my vow to paint High Exemplar Gravus and the Covenant of Menoth, amoungst other things.

This dwarf is made by Rackham (for the game Confrontation which apparently has died again) and is a really great sculpt. You can imagine what he is about to do.

I just realised I forgot to finish the edge of his shield, but I think I will leave it alone.

This next guy is a Cleric made by Reaper. He seems like a fairly standard D&D cleric and I almost let that stop me from buying him. I'm glad I didn't

I have finally started to paint eyes. i told my wife that and she asked,
"What did you used to do?"
"I just left them blank," I said.
"Creepy"

I am pretty happy with how they turned out. I followed Dr Faust's painting clinic, which an excellent resource on many things painting.

Knight of the Prophet

2009-05-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

I bought this guy because I wanted to use his head on a Bane Knight conversion, but when I opened the Blister I decided I liked him. I wanted a scheme that took me away from my other minis and this is what I cam up with:

I was surfing the web looking for pictures of this guy once I had his base colours painted, because I wanted to see if other people were painting the hands as gloves or gauntlets. I found the official picture of him and to my surprise it was almost the exact same scheme as mine.

I am fairly happy with the way he came out, although I am not happy with the eyes, but I hardly ever both with eyes, so it's no surprise I am crap at them.

And one more picture because I am happy with the photography. I am finally get the hand of taking these pics.

A break from Menoth and Trolls

2009-04-25T12:37:00.001-07:00

I managed to get a bit of modeling done today.

Work is a time sink

2009-04-23T12:39:00.000-07:00

I bought a few miniatures today, but I have had no time to do anything related to them for almost a week now. On the weekend I want to assemble the Covenant and convert my Bane Knight. We'll see how that pans out, seeing as how my wife is due to give birth any time now.

A good opponent makes for a good game

2009-04-18T01:26:00.000-07:00

I played at one of the local game stores yesterday that I have never played any games at before and I have lived here for four years. I have been meaning to go along to Warmachine Friday for at least 18 months, but many things have gotten in the way.

I played a guy who used Epic Haley with a pretty balanced force. Ironclad, Thorn, Hunter, Lancer, Sword Knights and Stormguard; he also had some buff solos. I had a Castigator, a Guardian and a devout, aklong with TFG and attachment, Choir, Knights Exemplar, a Seneschal and Vilmon.

It was a good game that came right down to the wire in the end. In turn 4 he had a go at assassinating Severius, but I got lucky (The defensive strike of the Devout also helped) and he came out almost unscathed. I advanced the Guardian out of combat (took almost no damage from the free strikes) and killed the Stormguard that was screening Haley. I then Immolated her twice with boosted damage for a measly total of 10 damage. I was a bit miffed about my crap damage rolls; one good boosted roll could have outright killed her and two on average rolls definitely should have killed her. Luckily though my second Immolation had set her on fire and with an average roll I could kill her with the flames at the start of the next round.

It was the only really tense moment for me because the game was in the balance. If the flames went out then Severius would die from the Hunter and the Lancer, if they kept burning there was a good chance I could kill her. As Menoth would have it the flames kept burning and the damage killed her and i won the game.

The thing that made the game good though was my opponent. He played well, but he was fair and in no way overly competitive. There was hardly any stress despite the balls to the wall aspect of rounds three and four and it was fun. My other regular opponents are also good like this (I don't want to say that this is new for me) as well, but I never know what to expect when I play a stranger in a shop. the fact that he was well mannered and comported himself very honourably during the game allowed me to relax and exorcise the competitive jerk from my own self.

Severius vs. Epic Asphyxious

2009-04-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

I played against Mike's Cryx again last night and was defeated. After my initial shock at how powerful Bile Thralls, Bane Knights and Death Knell are, I decided to post a Battle report.

Round 1
We both moved forward toward each other. I formed up properly around the Temple Flame Guard (TFG) and Mike seemed to be a bit muddled up as he dashed forward in a mob. We both put down buffs and that was about it.

Round 2
Cryx turn:

-The Satyxis raiders charged my Jack wall on the left side of the field. They hit and damaged the castigator and the Revenger, taking out the castigator's left arm; each time they damaged, they also did a point of feedback to Severius.

-Asphxyious cast death knell through his arc node and killed 7 of the TFG and the standard bearer and the officer. They were in shield wall and had protection of menoth, but it seemed to not matter at all. Makes me wonder if there is a use for stuff with shield wall now as there are so many ways around it.

-The Bane Knights moved up nearer the Raiders, while on the right flank the Mechanithralls moved up to totally get in the way and tie up my Seneschal and Dervish. The rest of his army advance a little and that was it.

Menoth turn:

-Upkept Vision on Severious and Eye of Menoth overall.

-I moved Severius up behind the devout and cast Ahes to Ashes, killing 4 Bane Knights.

-The Reclaimer handed two focus to the castigator, who then moved forward a used combustion to kill 6 of the Satyxis Raiders.

-The Revenger stabbed the last raider that opened a trample lane toward the Satyxis Sea Witch, which the Avatar then used very well.

-The Avatar squashed the remaining witches as he ran over the top of them toward the Sea Witch who also died. He had focus left so he made a sword attack and killed a Bane knight that happened to be there and then Activated Menoth's Gaze.

-The Seneschal ran around the edge of the Mechanithralls (surviving the free strikes) and killed the Necrosurgeon.

-The Knights Exemplar move forward to form an extra screen around Severius in case the Devout isn't enough.

Round 3
Cryx turn:

-Asphyxious used his feat and brought back to 'life' all the Bane Knights I had killed and a bunch of Raiders as well.

-The bile Thralls move forward and one of them purges, killing a couple of Mechanithralls and all of my Knights Exemplar. The rest of the bile thralls shot at Severius and the Devout. One of them did more damage to Severius. At the time I thought this was ridiculously overpowered, but that was mainly because it is the second time in a row the Knights exemplar have been wiped out by one attack, before they had done anything. maybe I will stop using them so much.

-The Detahripper then slammed into the devout, knocking Severius down and leaving him open to the Bane Knight that was out of the range of Menoth's Gaze.

-The Bane Knight killed Severious and so my jack heavy army was rendered useless.

I think there are two reasons I lost:

1. I underestimated my opponents. It was only the fourth or fifth time I had faced Cryx
and I didn't know their models well enough to combat them properly.

2. I didn't play Severius defensively enough. I directly used ashes to ashes (he was that close to the front line) rather than channeling it.

What have I learnt?

Severius is an excellent caster and if I had used the arc node I really think I would have won the game. I was slaughtering him and apart from a Seether and some solos, he really didn't have much left, whereas I still had four jacks. maybe even 5 if the Avatar could have survived all those Bane Knights. So I will use Severius again today and use him properly.

Privateer models: Beauty and the Beast

2009-04-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

I have to say that part of the reason that I play privateer games is because I was attracted by the look of the Warmachine minis. The Jacks looked awesome to my uninitiated eye back in 2006. The level of quality that is presented by a well finished Warmachine figure is second to none. There are figures that are as good, but there are none (imho) better. Having said all that, they can be a real pain in the arse to put together.

I started playing Warhammer in 1987 and then moved on to 40k and a few other miniature based wargames, but I never really had trouble putting the minis together and I would never have had to pin any of them. Warmachine has really introduced me to a new level of preparation for painting. I now have to pin a lot, which is a skill I only recently (the last few years) had to learn and I also resort to green stuff a lot as well; my mind boggled at how much green stuff I used on my castigator.

The miniature assembly is the only thing that really bugs me about the game. I don't want a drop in the quality of the sculpts, but it is asking a bit much when I have to pin a 28mm miniature in more than one or two places. Now let me present to you Gravus:

If I am lucky I will get away with three pins, but it might be prudent to pin his head as well, so that will be four. I'm sure the shoulder pad and the base don't require pinning, but you can never be too careful.

Well with that rant over I can get back to play testing Mk 2. I have a 50 pt game on Thursday night and I think there may be a spot for me on Friday at one of the local stores.

Mk 2 thoughts and clour schemes

2009-04-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

I have read through some of the posts other players have written (on the forums and on blogs) about the Mark 2 rules and am impressed by the level of thought that has gone into a lot of it; I'm not counting the people that are crying because their favourite, broken, MK 1 game killer has been tamed by the nerf bat.

My own experiences were mostly fun games against friends or friends of friends and there was never any upset or über competitiveness. I played a few tournament games, but that was not the norm for me, so my in depth understanding of the intricacies of Mk 1 are not as in depth as much of what I have been reading. The switch to Mk 2 for me has been easy; I had no favourite broken thing (except possibly Vilmon) to mourn.

After saying all that I will present my findings as I find them. I played on Thursday against Cryx and Mike took a bunch of stuff he never used to take, which is a good thing. I will list a few of my thoughts about various units:

Harrower:
I had never seen one fielded before and if it sucked before it doesn't now. It charged my Knights Exemplar unit and killed all of them with thresher. My Castigator took it out, but it was close.

Castigator:
I only bought it a week ago, so I had never used it before and was very happy with the results. The combustion attack with a 2" area attack wiped out almost a whole unit of mechanithralls in one go. When the necromancer chick (don't know her name) brought them back to life in the next turn, the Castigator did it again and this time killed the necromancer.

Revenger:
Still a solid light warjack. Dished up a Thresher and some of the Mechanithralls. I am happy with it and would use it again.

The Choir:
I think I like the way the choir works better now than before. I like the way the power works from each member of the choir rather than from the priest leading them. I think it means that one choir might be enough in future.

The Reclaimer:
Being able to give three focus to one Warjack is more useful than being able to spread them around. The soulstorm is also excellent, but I never got to test it out as i didn't realise he had it until it was too late.

Painting thoughts
How important is a colour scheme across the whole army? I ask because I tire of my blue and red scheme. I dropped the blue on my knights and I dropped the red on Feorra, but overall my army is blue and red. I mention this because I am contemplating painting my Avatar differently.

I managed to finish Vilmon and my Seneschal yeterday and got a lot done on the Reclaimer as well.

Castigator completed in time to castigate

2009-04-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

I finished my Casty this afternoon and am pretty happy with the result, especially since I departed from a technique I have been using for a long time. The difference was that I didn't ink the non metallic colours. I know its not that huge a thing to do differently, but I always (on key miniatures) use ink to provide a level of shade. I still inked the metallics though because they look flat without it and I am not good enough to do NMM.

Here he is from the side view. The only thing I don't like about the job is the pose he is in. The look I was going for was the scrapper throwing caution to the wind and diving into melee, but instead I got something else that could be called where are my keys?

I also did a lot more on the base than I normally do and I am happy with it for a first attempt, but I think in future I want my cobbles or flagstones to look more 3D. I think I have to rethink how basing is done. I might dig up a youtube vid of that prolific Canadian (I think he is the Kamloopian or something) model making guy. He has heaps of shows about miniatures and how to do stuff and he does it in real time, which means that while you might have to wade through 45 minutes to see a technique fully exploited, you get to see how it is done.

Last I have a picture of Rez and his Casty. I think Rez looks pretty proud of the little fella all grown up.

Next on the agenda (I have another week off work) is my Exempar Seneschal and my Reclaimer.

High Executioner Reznik has an offer for you

2009-04-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

Here is Reznik after I finished him (I think I posted photos of him then) and then finished him again. I have gone back to the old blue and red colour scheme that I departed from with the exemplars; I replaced the blue with black.

Here he is from the other side with his Eddie Izzard inspired scroll of doom.

Castigator

2009-04-08T02:32:00.001-07:00

I am trying out the Mark II rules tomorrow night, so it seems like a good opportunity to get my Casti painted. So here 'he' is with most of his base colours on.

I am thinking of trying a new technique, which actually means, not doing something I normally do. If it works I will be happy to mention it. If it doesn't I will pretend I never didn't do it.

Rebasing

2009-04-06T23:16:00.000-07:00

I went back over all my Menoth miniatures and fixed up their bases. For the most part they were just sanded and then painted brown; if they were lucky there may have been a little rock there as well. I decided to add a little bit of dried up looking grass to most of the bases to give them a better look. I am happy with the result.

I also bought the new Green Ronin game: Song of Ice and Fire Role Playing. I mentioned that I already played it using the free dowloadable version a while ago. I am glad I bought the book, because while I won't play the game in its entirety, i will definitely use the mechanics for other games I plan to run.

Spending spree

2009-04-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

I bought a whole bunch of Menoth stuff from my LGS yesterday.

I am moving to China in a few months and want to make sure I have stuff to paint. This will keep me busy for a little while at least.

The ruined fortification

2009-03-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

I managed to salvage the terrain feature I was working on, but in the process it came out a lot darker than I had intended.

I am still messing up my photos. Sometimes light is the issue and sometimes it's the camera settings. These ones are the best of a batch of about 50 or 60 taken at different stages today.

Setbacks

2009-03-28T04:08:00.000-07:00

I finished the ruined section of castle that has been my project for a while and sprayed it with lacquer to keep it safe from greasy nerd fingers. Unfortunately the laquer has dried leavuing lots of white spots and has ruined the look that I was quite happy with. I have seen this before, but the lacqeur I've been using lately has never done this before. I wonder why it happened this time. In the back of my mind I think maybe I did'nt shake it enough before spraying. Anyway, here is a pic of one of the problem areas.

I also botched the lighting and focus on the photo. Normally I get at least one of them right.

Walking through syrup

2009-03-25T02:42:00.000-07:00

Things have stayed slow. For many reasons I am not finding the time to work on game stuff. Last night though I managed to pull out the ruined castle and sand it down, so hopefully tonight I can paint it and maybe give it some detail tomorrow.

The title of the post is also a great song.

10 year olds wargaming

2009-03-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of pics of my fourth graders playing an entry level war game.

Mini wargamers

2009-03-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

I edited the mistake that made the whole thing not make any sense.

I introduced the wargame to my ten year olds yesterday. It really wasn't meant to be an out and out wargame, it was meant to lead them to an insight into why weapons developed so much over time. They were supposed to be hunting animals and taking them back to their camp to become food. I told them that the group with the most food in its camp at the end of the game would win.

I split the class into 4 teams of 6, each with its own colour. Three of the teams were mixed, with one or two boys and the rest girls. The red team however was all boys. On their first turn, one of the red boys asked me if they could kill people as well as animals. I told him they could if they wanted to, but I pointed out that the blue team (the closest to them) was a long way away.

The red boys discussed their strategy and decided that because their was a finite number of animals to hunt, they couldn't have the blue team hunting them all, so they headed toward them and attempted to exterminate them. They almost succeeded too. They managed to get 4 out of the 6 and they almost got one of the remaining ones as they fled away to their camp.

The blue team were not exactly happy about the way the game went and I think the red team were disappointed because time ran out, which meant that the green team won; they deserved it because they had cooperated from the word go.

The kids want to play it again and I am thinking of letting them do it on Friday. They have made lots of suggestions; better weapons being the most common idea. One of the kids (a member of red team) wants nukes to be introduced. Bloodthirsty little buggers.

Mostly rpg

2009-03-12T03:01:00.000-07:00

I had a great game with the guys on Saturday night. They were following a rumour of a wizard in the North to see if he was an escapee of the House of Rose. They did some gathering of information in seedy dock side bars and met a man that dealt in secrets. The man told them about a wizard living in a town called Lothair, a few days North of them. He also gave them a contact name in the town of a guy who knows more. So while there was little action there was plenty of role playing and investigation. I really enjoyed it.

My high school students were totally freaked out by yesterdays session of our fantasy game. I decided to base their latest escapade on a survival horror model. They have not played any horror, but they have watched enough movies and played enough computer games to get the genre.

I haven't done much painting lately. I am however building a small ruined fortification. I am about half way through it and look forward to putting it on the battlefield.

I have also accidentally designed a war game for my 4th grade class to play next week. Should be amusing.

Working for Morvery

2009-03-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

I finally have my fantasy rpg happening. The lads are coming over on Saturday night for the first installment (of what I hope to be more than just a couple) of "As yet unnamed fantasy game". The game takes place in the fantasy world I have been setting games in since the release of 3rd ed D&D. This will be the fifth group to play in the world (fifth only by a short margin; my students are playing in now too) that I have got so much information on.

The players have taken the role of trouble shooters working for the House of Thorn (A college of wizards with the emperor's ear), on the hunt for remnants of the recently destroyed House of Rose (the old main rival of the House of Thorn). I am thinking there will be a fair bit of political intrigue as they cross the land trying to wheedle out those of the Rose who have gone to ground in the wild lands or set themselves up in the cities and towns of the Dale Lands.

I am using the free download of Song of Ice and Fire, which I have heavily modified. One of the main mods was adding a magic system, as there seem to be no wizards in the original material. I am particularly happy with my magical incantations* and am including the one that I think is the coolest:

Fog of Seletz
On a successful routine incantation roll the weaver conjures a large fog that seeps up out of the ground and condenses out of the air to obscure an area a kilometer square over the course of a minute. The fog reduces sight range to five meters, is five meters deep and lasts for one hour.
Additional successes may be used to:
The fog does not obscure the vision of the weaver. In fact the weaver’s awareness rolls have a bonus dice as the movements of the fog alert him to the goings on therein.

*For some reason I am not using the word spells.

Have at you!

2009-03-02T12:36:00.001-08:00

I have finished the Knights Exemplar. I am happy with the simple scheme I have achieved; happier than I was with my finished Kreoss.

Now that I look at them I think I might do a few more bits of detail on them.

Do you have a flag?

2009-02-27T05:24:00.000-08:00

I decided to go against my better judgment and put the flags on the back of the Seneschal. The steps required to do so were many and complicated, but the main points were:

1. Drill (1mm drill bit) into the shoulder blades of the model.
2. Cut the pewter tabs off the base of the flags.
3. Incise a cross into the place where the tabs have been removed.
4. Drill carefully into base of the flag.
5. Lose patience with the amount of time the careful drilling is taking.
6. Push hard on the drill.
7. Drill through the miniature and into the thumb holding it.
8. Resolve to go back to clamping pieces before you drill.

Here is the culprit

Here is the innocent victim

No flag no country!

Kreoss in Red and Blue

2009-02-26T23:35:00.000-08:00

High Exemplar Kreoss is done and here* are the photos:

*Is it redundant to say here they are when you can already see them as you read the sentence?

No flags for the Seneshal

2009-02-26T11:50:00.000-08:00

I have assembled my Exemplar Seneshal after having bought his in April last year, but I haven't completely assembled him because I am toying with the idea of leaving off the giant annoying flags. I think they would look great, but I know they will be a fiddle pain in the arse and will definitely require pinning.

I have now varnished Kreoss and in the morning I will take a picture of him and post it here. The exemplars are also just about finished and will probably star in a photo of their own. Maybe they will get together and have one taken witrh Kreos; he is their boss afterall.

Good night.

The solution is flames

2009-02-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

I started playing Warmachine in April 2006 (or thereabout) and my faction was Menoth. I played Menoth until June last year when a guy on the periphery of our group decided to sell his Trollbloods. He wanted 150€ for 394€ (I priced it all at my LGS) worth of stuff. It was a whole army ready to go. Since then I haven't played Menoth at all; I even stopped painting them to focus on the mass of cheap tin that I had just acquired.

Yesterday I noticed my Knights Exemplar and thought to myself,
if I just spent a few hours on them, they'd be finished.
So I picked them up and started painting them. After a little while I noticed that there were only five of them, so I went looking for the missing guy. When I finally found him, I noticed Kreoss and Reznik and thought,
if I just spent a few hours on them, they'd be finished.
So I added them to the painting queue.

So I spent a few hours yesterday and today painting away and I have just about finished the knights and Kreos. During this time, Martin decided to challenge me to another game and because I have painting enthusiasm for the old religious nutters, it expanded and transformed into gaming enthusiasm. So next week I am rolling out the incinerators and uncorkin' the napalm for an old timey Skorne roastin'.

Borka vs. Makeda

2009-02-20T05:10:00.000-08:00

Skorne List

Makeda (m)

Titan Gladiator (T)

Cyclops Savage (C)

Basilisk Drake (B)

Venators

Cataphract Acuraii (A)

Ancestral Guardian

Trollbloods List

Borka Kegslayer (B)

Dire troll Mauler (D)

Winter Troll (W)

Longriders (L)

Fell caller (F)

Gudrun the Wanderer (G)

Feralgeist

Martin and I played a 500 pt game to break in his new Skorne miniatures. We rolled up the Domination scenario and the following map shows the basic terrain. The Khaki coloured blobs are hills and the dark green are forest.

Domination is about controlling the 9 areas of the board represented with a cross.

Set up

We rolled to set up and I was first. I tend to play pretty aggressively, so a tight bunch in the middle (designed to punch though the opposition) is a common formation for me. The map shows my Trolls as the blue circles, with the code letters referring to the letters by the names of the army lists at the top of this post.

Martin was hampered by a forest (he put it there) in his deployment zone, so he was spread right across the board. His are the red circles at the top of the map.

Opening moves

The map represents the first round and a half. It is mostly accurate, but a few things may be not in exactly the right place as my memory was hazy on some details. My force streamed across the board (claiming the middle ground) in my first turn, while Martin moved forward only a little and got his troops into better positions. My 2^nd turn was based around unleashing my cavalry. I cast Bum Rush (A spell from Borka) and Freezer (an animus from my Winter troll) on them and then the Fell caller sang War Cry and off the Longriders (Cavalry) went.

The Longriders smashed into the Venators and carved them up. I killed half the unit with the charge which was probably to be expected, but I have never really had my cavalry do much before, so I was very pleased.

Mid Game

Martin responded well and there was a point where I thought he was going to tear me to pieces. His Titan and Cyclops and the Acuraii all charged the Longriders and by the end there was only one Longrider left.

Gudrun attacked the ancestral guardian that was accompanying the Acuraii and he was able to destroy it with one hit. From here the game got pretty messy before the end.

End game

Martin’s Titan came running in and smashed my Winter troll quite badly. Luckily my Dire Troll was able to see it and charged. Unfortunately it only hit once and did hardly any damage. It was at this point that the game was in the balance. It all hinged on the Titan. If I could get rid of it I could dictate how the rest of the game went. After much protracted struggling I was able to kill of the Cyclops and then possess it with the Feralgeist. As the Titan focused on the Dire Troll and killed it, the Winter Troll, Borka and the Cyclops went in and managed to kill the killer.

Marin was in a hard position now, but true to his Menoth roots he made a ballsy move. I had accidentally left a charge lane from Makeda to Borka. Makeda came screaming in and with flashing blades almost succeeded in killing Borka. Almost. In my turn all of my monsters focused on trying to see who could eat Makeda first. The Winter troll won. With Makeda dead Martin conceded.

It was a fun game and a good first go at Skorne for Martin. I look forward to playing him again.

Now it looks like I am teaching a potential new player tomorrow night. I’m interested to see how that turns out.

Cygnar smashed

2009-02-07T03:40:00.000-08:00

Tom was visiting Martin from England last week and so he came along to the monthly war games night and as it happened he was drawn to play me. As it was only his sixth or seventh game I intended to be a bit instructional as we went along, but I think his background in other war games made him a little too untrusting to really listen.

I made a strong list based around Champions, the Stone Scribe and Madrak Ironhide. I am unfamiliar with Cygnar stuff but Tom had halberd guys, sword guys, Trenchers and four Jacks. I tried to give some advice, but he politely refused to heed my warnings about a few things and so I was able to beat him.

Tom didn't play poorly though and used his feat at the right time. I think the only thing he didn't do was prioritize threats appropriately. He focussed on the Totem Hunter (and eventually killed it) when he should have thrown his light Jacks in against the Champions. He also got really worried about the Longriders when he should have been focussed on the Trolls attacking the hill. I got the Champions into a great spot on the hill and with a Dire Troll and an Axer in Support I was able to throw him off and hold (the hill was the objective) the hill for the victory.

We both enjoyed the game and chatted for a while afterwards, which is a good indicator that no one felt miffed.

I am now looking forward to playing Martin this week. He has a bunch of new Menoth stuff that I haven't faced yet and I am interested to see what it can do.

Completed Winter troll

2009-02-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

I Started highlighting in white and realised I liked the idea of white being more than a highlight, so I kept going. I am happy with the final product and he is ready in time for the game tonight.

I'm not sure about the base though.

I am thinking of maybe some snow on the base.

2009-01-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

I have Highlighted the Skin with Ice Blue again and the hair with Bonewhite.

I am going to try and get both the hair and the skin to be way whiter. I am toying with the idea of just going straight to Skull White on my next pass. That might even be enough. Jeez I'm lazy.

The background for this shot I quite like. I think I am going to use it for all my shots from now on.

2009-01-28T12:27:00.000-08:00

I tried a wash with thinned down paint at this stage. I'm not sure I am happy with the results.

Just to mention the colours I am using. My paints are all Vallejo 'Game Color', although I do have some of the 'Model Color' range as well.

Over a white spray primer
for the skin: Ice Blue* as the base, with a wash of Electric Blue
The skin nodules are Magic Blue and I plan to highlight with Electric Blue
For the hair: Bonewhite with a very weak wash of Skin Wash**
For the loin cloth: Inner sections were done in Cobra Leather and the fur edging was done in
Charred Brown.

*The website lists this as Glacier Blue
** This is 'Game Ink'

2009-01-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

Here is the base coloured Winter Troll. I was home sick from work today and all I could do was sit around, so I got a lot done.

2009-01-27T00:02:00.000-08:00

I have in the past tried to do a painting blog, but I lost interest very quickly. I will try again here to post updates of work in progress. So here are my assembled and green stuffed:

Winter Troll

Gudrun the Wanderer

I think the next pic will be of the one I have decided to concentrate on. Likely I will not put up a shot of a miniature that has been spray undercoated because that seems a waste of time. I will concentrate on proper painting stages, so the next one will be fully base coloured.

In the driver's seat

2009-01-21T12:23:00.000-08:00

One of the tenth graders in the school gaming club has designed a role playing game for his personal project. I mentored him during the process and I must say that despite my initial concerns, he has done a great job. As the final part of the game design and before he writes his final paper on the process, we are testing the game for him.

Today was Flo's first day as Game Master and he did a pretty good job. I completely let go of the controls and played a character along side the other students. The game itself was fairly standard, but its simplicity allowed us to engage with it quickly and get fully involved with the plot. My character is a crazy old man, based on my favourite card from 'magic the gathering' and I quite enjoyed playing silly buggers with the kids, instead of sitting at the helm and trying to direct them.

Same old same old

2009-01-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

I played a fantasy rpg with my old Sydney group on Saturday night and despite looking forward to it, it was far from a success; in fact I spent the last hour looking for an excuse to end it.

Here are the problems as I saw them:
1. There were too many (eight) players.
2. Players didn't listen to each other and character cooperation was low.
3. Both in and out of character, people found ways to annoy each other and they also found in and out of character ways to become upset.
4. People spent periods of time disconnected from the game.

The first one is easy to fix: Five players max.
The next two have been problematic to different degrees for a long time.
The last one is not disruptive, so it has never been addressed, but when three people at the table are not involved in the game, it makes it difficult to maintain (GM) enthusiasm.

How do I choose who to include in the future?
How do I fix problems 2-4?

Changed some settings

2009-01-01T01:11:00.000-08:00

Changed a few settings in the hope that pople can post here. There have been a couple of people saying they were having trouble. Hopefully now this will be smoother. I'm not sure how it will look when new posts come in, but if you want to be more than annonymous, you may need to sign the end of the post.

Let me know if this works or not.

Play the game as written

2008-12-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

I have been a gamer for decades and have never found a gaming system that has completely satisfied me, but I have refrained (for a long while) from changing rules to suit my purposes. I used to do it all the time and over the years I learned why you shouldn't 'house rule'; read make shit up.

When you change something, you never know how that is going to affect the game down the road. It may have no effect, or at least no immediate effect, but for the most part, the rules are all interconnected.

Last night Martin and I played a 1000 point Flames of War battle and I slaughtered him. I won convincingly, mostly because we made up our own scenario on the fly, rather than following the approved ones from the rule book. The scenario we played, forced Martin to move forward while I waited in cover from which I could hammer him at my leisure.

It was still good fun though. My highlight was my command Stug IV being hit by three Sherman tanks and 2 PIATs and not even being scratched.

Madrak vs. Reznik

2008-11-30T10:05:00.000-08:00

Tuesday night Martin and I played a hardcore match. Because it was hardcore there was no time for photos at the time, so I set them up later on and took a few. I think I need to get new lights or at least fiddle with my lighting technique, so as I don't wash the subject out too much.

Anyway the main battle took part in the center, which really suited me, as my flanks were really only distractions and the right one crumbled in the first turn and ran screaming away from the enemy skirmishers. My Champions really acquitted themselves quite well and smashed his heavy troops and broke through to attack his warcaster.

I love the Champions and I really can see why people hate fighting against them. On the other side of the coin, I hate fighting against Vilmon. If I didn't win the game in round three, Vilmon was going to give me a good lesson in body bagging.

Super hero battle royale

2008-11-26T10:28:00.000-08:00

Thunderbird is no more. Our main story arc in Derek's mutants and masterminds game wrapped up on Sunday night in a climactic battle that took fully two hours to resolve. We busted into the villains lair, rescued the hostages and fought a whole slew of bad guys, before being able to beat down their leader.

My character (Warspite) is no more because he activated the device that would send the main villain back to his home (Hell) dimension and got taken back there with him. It wasn't an accident though, I had a feeling it would turn out like that as I pushed the button; it was time to retire the character.

So now Caliber, Wipeout and Airfist will have to do without a giant armoured behemoth to stand behind. My next character will be totally different.

Kriel Stone Bearer

2008-11-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

I just finished this unit. I started them 13 days ago and am happy with the result.

Here is a detail shot

Detail from the back

The day of the dart and the machete

2008-11-18T12:19:00.000-08:00

I have decided that because I am not making money off this I will use the real names of those involved at the time, except for when I use their nick names, which some people were often better known by. So here goes anecdote two, which is a long drawn out number of events that took place over a month. I will be as brief as possible.

I had met Andrew playing Killer and we had gotten on quite well, despite the fact that we had tried to knock each other off. I invited him to come down on the weekend to John’s place and have a look at a game of Warhammer 40000. The game was fun and Andrew (and Dennis who came along as well) were keen to get involved and we were keen to be tough in front of the new guys.

Jason was acting the goat (he wasn’t the only one) and so I informed him that if he took another step toward me I would throw a dart (that was in my hand) at him. Not to let anyone down, Jason took that step. Following suit I threw the dart. I wasn’t really aiming to get him anywhere but the shoulder, but I muffed the throw and he twisted so that it was heading for his face.

At the last minute though, Jason threw up his arm and blocked the dart, which promptly buried itself up to the barrel in his flesh. Jason grabbed the dart and I turned to run as he pulled it out; I thought he was going to throw it at me. Running saved my life, but not from the dart. As Jason chased me out the door, he grabbed a rusty old machete with which he tried to remove one of my legs. He swung it back and forth and it was his swing action, which threw off his run and allowed me to escape. Andrew and Dennis were shocked, but still joined our gaming group.

About two weeks later and again in John’s garage we convened; this time to play a role playing game. At one point during the night, Dennis started describing the events of the day of the dart and the machete to those that had missed it. To make the story authentic he reached for the same machete and brought it in for a cross table swipe. It was a great story and the actual weapon being there helped us all re-imagine it, until Dennis lost his grip on the handle and the machete went whirling across the room straight for John’s head.

In a beautiful Spider-sense kind of way John quickly leaned to his left and the blade whizzed above his ear to crash into the wall behind him. We all breathed a sigh of relief, especially when John’s dad didn’t come and investigate the sounds of carnage. If that had been it, we would have had a funny double story, but there was more to come.

About two weeks later we were playing my adapted Warhammer 40000 role playing game (15 years before the real one came out) at my Grandparents place. This time Andrew was doing the retelling. It was all going smoothly until he got to the part where john dodged the blade. Being theatrical, Andrew threw himself side ways and down to simulate John’s (now legendary) move and managed to drive the corner of the wooden chair back into his temple. We all leapt up to see him as he writhed on the floor with a mild concussion. We all sat down. He would live.

Another week or so later, Dragon was retelling the story (again at my Grandparent’s house) and as he got to the part where we all leapt up to see if Andrew was alright, he leapt right into the faux chandelier that hung above the table. The noise was calamitous and we all threw ourselves to the ground, except for Cheezel, who looked directly up into what we all assumed was a cascade of falling glass knives. Not one shard of glass was loosed from the chandelier, but the noise took a minute or so to die down.

We all wanted to retell the story after that, but no one was game to. It did kind of seem like Cheezel had broken the curse by not having anything bad happen to him, but he had also extended the story, so no one was going to chance it.

The Totem Hunter

2008-11-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Here is the predator.

Side view.

I finished him on Saturday in time for Subcultures in Utrecht. I am mostly happy with him, although I think I could do more with the gray; maybe make it a little lighter.

Bad showing for the Trollbloods

2008-11-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

I did very poorly in the tournament in Utrecht on Sunday. When I say poorly, I mean I cam last. Am I embarrased? A little perhaps. Am I annoyed? Not really. If I had won my last game (and I should have except for the rules my opponent broke) I would have finished fourth or fifth due to the decent amount of victory points I scored in my previous matches. Ah well.

It is difficult to explain to people why I lost without it sounding like sour grapes, but that's why I have a blog. Yay! Basically, my opponent was rolling an extra dice on the charge attack damage of her heavy warbeast. She did this three times and I didn't realise she couldn't do it. I am also sure she didn't know either. However this did mean that my stuff was falling apart rather quickly as she targeted it.

The worst mistake though was that she charged the same warbeast at my warlock, even though he was standing behind other figures that screened him. By this stage I was already trying to argue that the charge wasn't legal (according to the rules) for a different reason and after I lost that argument I didn't realise it was illegal from the screened perspective.

The arguing I was doing wasn't with my opponent though and this was the thing that actually pissed me off. Our game was dragging and so the other players filtered over to watch the end of our game as they finished theirs. Advice a plenty was wafting down from them to my opponent. I wonder if they would have been so keen to help if she had been a fat 40 year old man instead of a pretty 25 year old woman. Anyway, it was with them I was always arguing my case and it was clear that they wanted her to win. That is the only thing I am a bit sour about.

My Tournament Army

2008-11-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

I have finally finished painting my 500 point Trollblood army for the Subcultures tournament in Utrecht tomorrow.

I am mostly happy with them, although I could be happier with the Fell Caller (Front Left) and the Pyg Keg Carrier (Front Right). I just didn't spend enough time on them. Also, I didn't paint the Earthborn Dire Troll (Back Right), I inherited it in a job lot that I paid almost (about 25% store price) nothing for.

Eventually I will get the camera settings correct so that stuff isn't so shiny. Maybe I should spray the big yellow guy with matt varnish.

Dire Troll Mauler

2008-10-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

Here he is:

I just finished him and immediately took a photo. This is the guy that got swamped by those damned scouts of Martin's.

I am in the process of finishing my Fell Caller and my Totem Hunter as well, so that by Sunday I should have a fully painted force for the tournament.

Borka vs. The High Reclaimer

2008-10-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

Background
Martin, Mike and I are playing in the Subcultures tournament in Utrecht on November the 2^nd. The Tournament is 500 pts, which is a bit lower than we are used to and there is a time limit, which we are definitely not used to, so getting some games in before hand is a must. We built our armies and had a practice game last night.

The combatants were, Martin’s menoth against my Trolls:

Menoth List

The High Reclaimer
Revenger
Exemplar Seneshal
Exemplars Errant
Idrian Skirmishers
Zealots
Vengers

Trollblood List

Borka Kegslayer
Earthbore Dire Troll
Dire Troll Mauler
Trollkin Champions
Fell Caller
Totem Hunter

We played a standard 6 round game where you could win by holding the hill in the middle for two rounds. Holding the hill seemed to be only an afterthought, as we both went straight for each other in an attempt to grind ourselves into foul smelling paste.

Observations
My only mistake was misusing my Dire Troll Mauler, which got it killed. Martin’s mistake was relying on Zealots to do something useful.

I charged my Dire Troll at the Zealots and managed to contact and kill a couple of them. Unfortunately, the Idrian skirmishers poured down off the secondary (read: unimportant) hill, surrounded the poor dumb beast and over the course of a couple of rounds, killed it. Of course he did eat a couple of them, but because he was frenzying, I couldn’t control him to choose sensible targets.

Zealots can be very effective in the right circumstances. Unfortunately, even in the right circumstances they can still prove a little unreliable. Martin always chooses Zealots (I used to as well) and his fortunes with them (against me) have not been so favourable. Last night he managed to get them into range twice to throw fire bombs and the only models they managed to kill were themselves.

Conclusion
Overall, luck was with me and definitely made the difference as both Borka and the Totem Hunter survived rounds where with average rolls (Martin's damage rolls) they would have been toast. I don’t want to put my victory all down to luck though, as we both played a pretty good tactical game, which was decided on victory points because the round limit was up. I think I am going to use this army in the tournament, because it showed it could do well against a predominantly infantry army; I just need to make sure I use both my Trolls to full effect.

The alley of confusion bullets

2008-10-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be interesting to document some of those old memorable moments that mark certain games and campaigns as special and fun. These anecdotes will often be something a character has said or done to turn a regular situation on its head. However I won’t just limit it to in game content. The player in the starring role instead of their character will be a fairly common choice for this segment.

To kick this off I am going to relieve a moment from a science fiction game that I ran about ten years ago. I will change the names to protect innocent characters and their not so innocent players, but if you are reading this and were involved, drop me a line if you would like me to include real names. Anyway, I call this first one:

The alley of confusion bullets

The characters had chased some crooks out of a secret high tech manufacturing plant and were really desperate to catch them. As is the want all groups of gamers, they split up at every possible opportunity and so Darren found himself alone in a section of the city that was narrow winding alleyways and was all of a sudden confronted by the villains, that had decided to stop running and take on the lone man that was chasing them.

Guns were drawn and Darren had the edge. He shot one of the villains through the chest and then dived behind a dumpster for cover. The other characters could hear the gun fight, but they were some distance away and due to the echoing of the tight spaces, couldn’t pin point where the skirmish was taking place.

Darren was doing quite well on his own though, so he ignored the calls of his comrades over the radio, knowing full well that he could handle five punks with guns. Popping out from cover, he brought down another and ducked back in time to avoid a hail of return fire.

Once more Darren emerges to shoot one of the villains, but this time with the unexpected addition of a bullet to his own collar bone. Down he goes. He is bleeding out and he knows it, so he decides that now would be the time to call for assistance. Grabbing the radio as consciousness is slipping away, he says to his teammates,

“I’m being shot at and I don’t know where I am!”

Much laughing ensued.

I would be interested to hear other people’s memorable moments.

Future moments i intend to write up include (but are not limited to):

Flame on swamp thang
Can I just shut up
I got us a load of dirt instead of those computers
The hand of destiny
Cheezel and the chandelier of shards

Super hero mansion

2008-10-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

Without leaving the confines of our not so secret headquarters, we managed to play a whole session of Mutants and Masterminds (last night) and just develop our characters. At first I felt like we hadn't accomplished anything, but upon reflection and some sleep, I think we may have helped solidify our character's relationships with one another.

The big surprise was my secret coming out. The other characters discovered that I am actually a robot and not a person piloting a robotic suit. My other big secret (where my consciousness comes from) is probably going to be exposed in the next session. Oh what fun.

Total defeat

2008-10-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

Martin and I played another small game of Flames of War to complete our rules familiarity process. It was a success in that we are now comfortable with the rules after three small games, but from my point of view (as a player) there was only failure. In exactly 20 years of wargaming, I have never come out of a game not having inflicted a single casualty on the enemy; until tonight.

To be fair to myself, the scenario made it tough for me, as I was the attacker and I really didn't have a mobile enough force. Had I been the defender, I probably would have done a lot better.

So here is the only game play shot I am going to post. It shows my Grenadiers moving toward the British line in front of the houses. I needed to get past the houses to take the fuel and/or ammunition dump that lay just to the North.

I failed miserably.

After the game, we set up the terrain again so that we could show off our newly painted miniatures. Here is a shot from each side:

Martin's commandos

My Grenadiers

Having suffered the worst defeat ever, I came away wanting to play again even more. I really enjoyed the game and playing against Martin means that losing is not a problem; there are players out there that I really don't enjoy losing to.

Role Playing Styles (Stage One)

2008-09-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

This is not a comment on that GNS rubbish, but rather how people play an actual character. It came to me because one of the students has left my Wednesday afternoon group citing sporting commitments. His brother (also in my group) says that the real reason is that I won't go back to dungeons and dragons. I don't think that is the real reason either. I think the real reason is that he has realised that he is not role playing at the same level as the rest of the group; he is still at stage one.

Stage one
In stage one things seem fairly simple. The bad guys are bad and need to be killed or punished. The victims are innocent and need to be protected or rescued. And a character class is what defines how you play a character. Fighters fight, rogues steal and so on.

Stage one players often sit back and wait until their character can have an impact on the game so that they can shine. Unfortunately such one dimensional characters are often of very limited use and the players become bored very quickly, often contriving situations where they can use their character's skills. The game is often slowed down by these players as their characters pick fights in taverns or attempt to steal from the local merchant.

This idea of stages makes me think about my own progression as a role player. What is stage two? Is it to do with alignment? Where do skills, background and personality come in? Is there a continuum? Hmmm.

Role Playing Gamer syndrome 4

2008-09-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

Sunday night we went around to Mike’s to play his Sci Fi rpg. The game is kind of like the Firefly TV show, set in the Alternity universe, using Spirit of the century as the engine. The first session worked out well. We knew our characters because of our zero session (I am going to insist on zero sessions from now on) a few weeks before and we knew how we knew each other as well.

We didn’t really get much done because in true role playing fashion, we hit a civilised place and split up immediately. Anything we needed to do required us to contact each other via radio and so formulating simple plans took longer than was strictly necessary. So when the problem finally presented itself to us, we were all in separate parts of the space station; meaning that our expertise was stretched ridiculously thin.

I wonder why it is that in any game, in any genre, as soon as the characters come in from the wilds, (be it dungeon, deep space, the sewers or a frozen wilderness) they feel the need to scatter to the four winds and disappear alone into the big bad city. Am I the only one seeing this happen all too often?

Flames of War: What did we learn?

2008-09-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

After the hardcore match on Saturday, Martin and I played Flames of War. He tried out the Brits this time and I stayed with the Germans. Over all I think we learned two things.

One: House to house fighting is tough and brutal.
Two: Mortars are fantastic, except when they are in the open and can be seen by a heavy machine gun.

After seeing off the Insel Affen, we moved to the North side of the village to make sure they didn't come back.

Here is the machine gun crew that shot the enemy mortar team.

Trollbloods vs. Protectorate of Menoth Hardcore

2008-09-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I played a hardcore match against Martin. The only rule we ignored was that the miniatures had to be painted. I understand that painted miniatures are an integral part of a real Hardcore match, but in game terms it made no difference. We played 7 minutes turns and the objective was to kill the other persons Warcaster/Warlock.

The forces:

Martin (Menoth)
Amon (Warcaster)
Crusader
Revenger
Devout
Avatar
Exemplar Seneschal
Rhupert Carvalo
Reclaimer
2 Units of Knights Exemplar
Vengers

Me (Trollbloods)
Borka Kegslayer (Warlock)
Dire Troll Blitzer
Dire Troll Mauler
Earthborn Dire Troll
Trollkin Champions
Trollkin Longriders
2 Fell Callers

I would love to write a battle report, but there were so many rounds in our 90-100 minute game that I would get it wrong to try and recount it. What I will do is mention the main events.

Left mid table
The Vengers circled round our left flank but they were very cautious, possibly too cautious, so I charged my Longriders straight into the avatar. The fight there lasted the rest of the game, with the Avatar really messed up by my charge that it lost its ability to move. The Devout joined it and so the remaining longriders focused on it as they were out of the 1/2 inch reach of the Avatar. After a couple of rounds they managed to destroy the Devout's ability to move as well.

Left rear table
The Vengers threw caution to the wind as the rest of the battle was unfolding without them and advanced to close to the Earthborn that I had left back to watch them. On my next turn he charged in and ate the first Venger with his first attack. I riled him and left him outside the control radius of Borka. In my next turn he frenzied and polished off the remaining two Vengers that had done him some damage.

Mid table
I charged my Blitzer into the Revenger and trashed it, while the Gobber on his back nailed a few knights with his machinegun. Unfortunately, the knights charged in their turn and slaughtered the poor old Blitzer. I sent the Mauler in who took out the Exemplar Seneschal and what was left of the Revenger.

Right mid table
The Champions advanced and were charged by a half strength unit of knights and the Crusdaer, but because of some luck, the ones that were taken out made their toughness rolls and stayed in the game. A Fell Caller charged the Crusader as well, but did little to it and was soon dead.

After we tore each other to pieces over the course of about ten or 11 rounds the game came down to Borka Kegslayer, vs. Amon one knight and the Reclaimer. That was it, there was nothing left on the table Borka moved out of combat with the Reclaimer (not worried about the free strike, which Martin didn't think I would do) and blasted Amon to pieces. Then for good measure (spite) I shot the knight.

Victory! The closest game I have ever played. All I had left was my Warlock and Martin had a Reclaimer.

Daunted by those Flames of War

2008-09-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

The guy from my FLGS (Mage Store) gave my number to another guy, by the name of Andreas, so that we could meet for a game of FoW and he could teach me to play properly. It was a good idea and I found that we were interpreting the rules quite well, with only a few things that we had omitted.

As an introductory game though, there were a few pros and cons:

Pros first
1. Andreas is a polite and courteous player.
2. He explained things well even though English is his second language.
3. His miniatures are superbly painted.
4. He let me make some tactical mistakes so that I could learn from them.

Now the Con
1. We played almost 1900 points. It looked very impressive with all the tanks and infantry lined up and waiting to go, but as a beginner, I was a little daunted by the thought of a 600 point game, let alone more than three times what I was expecting.

Anyway, i am playing again on Saturday (600 points) and will take this new knowledge with me to knock Martin over the head and finally win a game of FoW.

In other news I am coming along nicely with my own miniature painting, with 10 stands of infantry almost complete.

In other other news, I am also playing in Mike's sci fi game on Sunday. Yay!

Super Hero Role Playing

2008-09-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

This post is way longer than I wanted it to be. I was going to fill this blog with wargame battle reports, so I thought, why not a rpg battle report. Oh well.

Last night we played Derek’s Mutants and Masterminds game and as always it was a well thought out and interesting game. The heroes are played by me, Alex, Stefan and Mike and in no particular order are:

Air Fist: a powerful telepath and psychokineser.

Caliber: A high tech weapons and equipment gunfighter.

Warspite: A Three meter tall, flying armoured suit.

Surfer: A drug induced body control specialist.

The group has been hired by billionaire Douglas Reed to form the core of a team of super powered warriors, to combat the growing menace of what the government has termed, ‘People of Mass Destruction’. The main antagonist is known as Thunderbird in the press and is a robotic suit of power armour that was the first prototype of the Warspite suit.

Thunderbird (who has recently taken to calling himself the First Born and indicating that Warspite is his younger brother) has developed a nanite that can control animals, making them very aggressive; it even works on humans. Luckily the nanites are detectible under UV light, so the group has so far been able to contain any microscopic invasions of their HQ.

Last night’s session revolved around us stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out how to track down Thunderbird. In the comic books there is always some kind of weird science way for the heroes to track down the villain, but we are stumped. Our only lead was the word ‘Collider’, that Air Fist was able to pull from the mind of an unwitting pawn of Thunderbird. When combined with the image of Northern San Francisco, we worked out that Thunderbird was interested in the particle accelerator at Berkley.

The three human agents (posing as potential investors) entered the science complex (while Warspite loitered high above) to talk to those in charge and find out why Thunderbird would be interested in the collider. Outside, Warspite’s pilot was in direct mental link with Air Fist and was feeding the appropriate scientific questions to him…Warspite has a science background.

Out of nowhere an invisible force began attack Warspite, causing him to spin out of control toward the ground and severe the mental link with Air Fist.

Air Fist and Surfer left Calibre talking to the real scientist and exited the building quickly to help the beleaguered Warspite, who had managed to control his descent enough to avoid crashing. It turned out that the invisible attacker of Warspite was a being with the ability to control air and as Air Fist and Surfer attempted to help their armoured friend, a man suffused with light and breathing fire attacked them.

Meanwhile, Caliber left his meeting and pulled the fire alarm so that the civilians in the complex could escape the super powered battle that was just beginning. He then ran around to his vehicle to retrieve his weapons and armour so that he could help his friends. Warspite seemed to have the air being in a bear hug and was literally squeezing the life out of him, so his comrades turned their attention to the flame belcher.

Surfer knelt down and placed his hand upon the asphalt of the car park and moments later, dagger like, stone fingers erupted from the ground beneath the flame wielder, knocking him down and stunning him. It seemed that the fight was almost done; until the sound of splintering trees announced the arrival of the enemy reserve.

Smashing his way out of the nicely sculpted garden stepped a large man, who seemed to be chiselled entirely out of rock. He immediately headed toward Air Fist, who seeing this new threat, grabbed the brute with the power of his mind and began to squeeze, causing the big man to stumble. It seemed that Air Fist had the better of this new assailant, but then the stone man steadied himself and then picked up the pace toward the psychic hero.

With Warspite now on the ground and distracted by his own fight and Surfer moving to make sure the fire wielder was out of the battle, Calibre realised it was up to him. He could see the strain on Air Fist’s face as he put everything he had into stopping the onrushing juggernaut; but it wasn’t going to be enough. Pausing in his quest for his weapons, Calibre pulled out his neural dampener, a device invented by his brother, that was designed to temporarily disrupt individually targeted super powers. Taking aim at the large stone man, he thumbed the control stud. A thrumming noise reverberated across the car park and the big man went down.

Clearly in pain, the big stone warrior struggled back to his feet as Calibre slid over the bonnet of a nearby car to get to his own equipment more quickly. Opening the door, he snatched up his paired pistols in time to see Air Fist go down as if he had been shot. Blood sprayed from his friend’s side as Calibre watched the seemingly unstoppable rock coated assailant turn toward him. Air fist slumped to the ground, all attempts to deal with the fight out of his mind as he attempted to staunch the bleeding from the large gash above his right hip.

The stone man leaned down and gouged out a handful of blue black asphalt as easily as if it were wet sand. With a twist of his torso and a flick of the wrist, he sent the debris he had gathered spinning in Calibre’s direction. With barely a moment to spare, the gunfighter dropped to his belly, the car park fragments imbedding themselves in the panels of the car behind him. So that’s what happened to Air Fist, thought Calibre. Taking aim, he fired off a quick double shot, scoring a hit on the left shoulder of the titan and spinning him around and down out of sight behind more cars.

From the western side of the car park, water began to pour into the already debris strewn area of battle. From out of the pooling liquid a woman grew as if she was made of water.

“You were warned!” she yelled as she made a double armed sweeping gesture toward Warspite and the weakening air creature still in his grasp. A Tsunami of water engulfed the struggling pair and swept them aside.

The state of play had changed dramatically in the last few moments thought Surfer, as he stood up from the fire wielder, now writhing in agony from a low blow. Warspite was gone. Swept away by a momentary torrent of water. Air Fist was down and it seemed only barely managing to stem the flow of blood from his injury. At least he had Calibre he thought as he rounded to face the remaining two villains.

Putting his hand to the ground he made his sharp, stone shaped fingers, lance upward beneath the rock armoured man who had proven so dangerous. Unnaturally resilient skin turned the jagged finger shaped weapons as if they were paper and the man responded by stamping his foot, sending a seismic shock through the ground that sent the pair reeling. The liquid woman advanced menacingly to stand beside her compatriot and gloat over the coming victory.

With a sickening thud, the body of the air creature landed at the feet of the water woman, accompanied by the amplified voice of Warspite,

“So comes the end to all the tools of Thunderbird.”

With a deeply vibrating hum, his gravity rifle discharged, hitting the woman in the solar plexus and sending her to the ground unconscious. The combined attacks of Calibre and Surfer were enough to distract the last attacker, the man made of stone, as Air fist managed to stop the blood flow from his torn open side. Gathering the last remnants of his psychic reserve, he unleashed a powerful blast of pure mind energy at the brute who was already reeling under the relentless assaults of the Calibre and Surfer.

With a thud, the stone giant collapsed to the ground. The heroes were breathing heavily and one of them required medical attention, but they had bested their foes.

The perfect blend of orc and elf

2008-09-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

School is back in session and so the games club is back and it's bigger than ever. Mike is running warmachine games in the room next to me and I am running an rpg based on the Lord of the Rings.
Originally I was using the d6 (Fantasy) system, but none of us was enjoying it; it seemed clunky, which was strange as I remember playing it years ago and enjoying it.

So, I threw out the d6 system and converted the characters that had been made to a system of my own devising. Is it perfect? Nope, not by a long shot, but it ran smoother and faster and the kids enjoyed it, so I will tweak it and continue to use it. The Lord of the rings game is really just a quick story arc designed to take in 5 or 6 of our Wednesday afternoon sessions, before we move on to other games. It was also designed to attract new players to the club.

The background to the game is that the war of the ring is over and was won when Sauron reclaimed the ring. Since then the world of men has crumbled, the elves are gone and the dwarves are under siege in their fortress halls. The surviving peoples live in small, hidden villages in forests and rugged hill lands to avoid the orcs on the look out to finish them off.

Last week the group heard about an elven boat that was seen going back up the river Anduin in the direction of Lorien and Mirkwood. They followed that clue down to the river, because the elves were all thought to have left for the west. They ambushed some orcs that had destroyed a village the night before and that is where we left off.

Today's game was good. The characters went on with the fight that we were stuck halfway through and finished it quite quickly. They killed the ten or so orcs, with only two injuries in the group and went on to search the orcs and their encampment. What they found confused them. All of the orcs looked as though they had more elf blood in them than orc. They still had orc coloured skin, lank greasy hair and sharp teeth, but apart from that they could have passed for elves.

However, after discovering the elfy orcs, they decided to head further into the hill lands to try and find a hidden village. In typical rpg party style, the idea was put forward by one player and because no one else had a better idea they went with it. Oh well. I will have to find a subtle way to put them back on track.

Flames of War

2008-09-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

In the old days I would have been seriously turned off a game where I rolled such bad dice and was then appropriately annihilated. Possibly I have matured over the last few years because while winning is fun, having fun is more important. Martin and I played our intro game to Flames of War tonight and his Soviet forces rolled right over the top of me. I'm sure we made plenty of mistakes and I had (possibly) the worst dice rolls ever, but none of that mattered, it was just a good fun game.

We are going to play again next week and he is now seriously considering which force to play and consequently buy. The front runners at the moment are the British and Soviets. I don't care which he buys. I am equally happy to play Festung Europa or Stalingrad.

Here is a pic of my PaK 38 guys that I have finished.

Flames of War

2008-09-09T02:39:00.001-07:00

I am playing my first game of Flames of War tonight and I am a bit over excited about it. Martin (my opponent) has also never played before, but with the years of experience we have with all manner of other games, I'm sure it won't be too difficult.

I picked up a Grenadier Kompanie box set during the week and Martin has indicated he would like to try the Soviets; so Stalingrad it is! Painting the little (15mm) buggers is something I had not tried before and it is vastly different to the 28mm I have become accustomed. I imagined it would be much more difficult to paint the smaller soldiers, but the lower amount of detail means that I am turning them out quite quickly.