Tuesday, December 30, 2014

X-Wing, and Winter Gaming at the Gopher...

So, got a bunch of great game stuff for Christmas because my wonderful wife was coordinating with Dave at the friendly Armored Gopher…  Got several X-Wing ships, D&D Attack Wing things and such J…    So, knowing how to play the “Wing” based games, they all seem extremely similar.  D&D has the major difference with the ground and air combat really…  X-Wing has the really big ships, but those are more “epic”, and outside of the normal game scope.  Looks like there is a big X-Wing group locally and there are Store Championships coming up.  And it looks like there is going to be X-Wing on Wednesday and some Saturdays with more events hitting.  Looking like some STAW and D&D stuff will be scheduled as well.  Hopefully more of the STAW group will make it out to play and the D&D group grows.  We seem to have a good solid core, but of course getting 12+ players out to an event is a huge deal and a bit of a stretch currently.  So, have to get more of the kids out to play…  I am not sure how many folks will be out for the X-Wing stuff, but looking forward to that…  Globally at least there seems to be a LOT of momentum behind this game…  And frankly I now have a pretty good sized Rebel fleet J  Thanks to my amazing wife of course! 

Noticed the Attack numbers are a LOT smaller than STAW in X-Wing, and I think this is a very good thing.  STAW gets out of hand quickly with this unbalance.  I think WizKids has addressed part of this, but FFG has avoided it altogether I think…Overall, seems balanced and fun…

Looks like a Journeyman League coming up for Warmachine…  Meh…  J  I’ll play I guess, but have to admit I had a LOT less fun in the last one.  Was my choice or more specifically lack of choice with respect to the casters and the point levels…  My Dwarves will do well enough I think, and it will be quick enough to get in some X-Wing and D&D Attack Wing…  So, more gaming I think…


Work is “meh”…  Waiting it out I guess…  Looking and waiting for more Management jobs to open up, waiting to see how things shape up in my current position.  Things are sounding good, and there is potential, but I’ve been there 3 years waiting on the change of title, and with people reporting to me who actually on paper outrank me…  Well, would be more a problem if my personality were different, but I have built up my own little empire with very good people.  Lucky I guess, but I would be in an excellent position were the paperwork in order…  But still being a junior “Systems Administrator” in Math on paper at least…  Well, I’ve been told that has changed, but having not seen it in writing, and the “If it did not get written down, it did not happen” policy….  So, still HAVE a job of course, and that is great…  Just wanting to get it “in writing”.  Will be getting my paperwork in order to apply to start my Masters I guess…  Never thought I would, but any job my level or higher is kind of requiring this particular piece of paper…

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

First D&D Attack Wing OP event at the Gopher...

So, played in the D&D Attack Wing OP 1 this evening…  Was an absolute blast.  If there is anyone able to make it to the Armored Gopher, would suggest the road trip…   Was VERY close in all three games I thought.  None of the games were what I felt were too one sided really.  I played:

Red Dragon (Fire Breath)
Blue Dragon (Lighting Breath)
Harper Elves (Limnen, Reform, 5 lads)


I faced a list of 3 Wraiths (Named one, 2 normal, all with the upgrade to raise more Wraiths and life drain), a list with 2 decked out named Dragons (Copper and Shadow) and then Joe’s Frost Giant leading out the troop of Hobgoblins and a Ballista…  First game was fun, but the Wraiths ability to regenerate and raise more should not be underestimated…  Killed 2-3 of his un named Wraiths, but couldn't kill it in time.  Game two was a close one with me being able to essentially run my two Dragons into his and trust in the weight of dice.  The Red has a 5 dice attack and the Blue a 4 dice and 2 Armor for both…  Both of his Dragons had base 3 attacks, and one Armor.  The Elves for the additional 3 dice attack.  Made this a very “Klingon” list coming from the STAW world with weight of fire and simply throwing more “stuff” at them than they can handle…  Game three was my Dragons against an all Infantry list…  VERY nearly pulled it off, but the Hobgoblins and Ballista both getting 6 Dice Attacks with concentrate and/or Target for quality of fire are brutal.  Needed to run one flank, overwhelm it and then move down the line.  Got close, killed the Ballista and Giant while losing my Blue and a lot of my Elves…  He offed the last elf and the injured Red and my last retaliation with the fire breath rolled the 5 dice for 4 hits and a focus…  1 short of wiping the Hobgoblins…  J  Epic battle to literally the LAST figure on the board on the last dice roll…  Great game J…  REALLY happy this game is pretty well balanced and a load of fun to play…

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Ah, Blood Angels and more Wing stuff...

So…  Looking like the Blood Angels are coming up next.  Not sure I’d call them rumors, GW has announced and people are posting stuff from books they have in hand.  So far, completely underwhelmed as a Fleshtearer’s player.  Gabriel Seth goes to “Lord of War” slot from HQ.  If I’m honest he was mediocre as an HQ, I mostly played him because I liked the model and it was amusing.  He was NOT the most effective HQ I could field by a long shot, and he seldom got his points back lacking Eternal Warrior and dying to the first Str 8 hit…  Yes, there were games he went on a rampage and nearly won the game for me singlehanded, but FAR more often he wandered around a bit with his bodyguards and played “Linebacker” for my force.  Librarian powers are looking “meh”…  Not bad per se, but nothing to bring them up to the top tier.  Mephiston going HQ and gaining the IC rule?  OK, I HAVE the mini but never bothered to field it.  I killed it plenty because a lot of people read the Vampire Lord stat line and thought it was a one man army.  Then I would drop my plasma/melta lads in to kill him in a single round of shooting…  Yeah, he can go into a Squad now and ride in a Transport…  ‘course he cannot really use his magic, I mean “psychic” powers then, so…  CPT Tycho looks like he loses everything that made him interesting and playable, so another shelf model.  Sanguinary Priests lose Terminator Armor.  So there goes yet another converted model for me to the shelves of obscurity…

Vanguard Vets lose their assault from Deep Strike.  Knew it was coming, so not a surprise, just NO reason now to bother fielding them now.  Death Company lose some things, but Jump Packs go to 3 points for them…  By an odd coincidence I have a whole mess of them with Jump Packs because the 3rd edition silliness was such that this was a no brainer configuration…  Might be again.  But then they are not Troops I think and never could HOLD anything.  Just win by killing everything else.  DNs are…  Well, they don’t really change much at all, so they still are worse than a MC in just about every way.  No cheap AAA, no access to cheaper Interceptor type fliers, no Centurions and only the base Rhino hulls are fast now with the Baal Predators…  The Fast Vindicators were one of the very few good tanks TO field for a BA force.  Predators had a niche role being able to move 6” and fire everything, but…


Grav weapons in some places and Heavy Flamers for Tactical Squads and Sternguard…  OK, nice I guess.  So, looking like a fairly substandard Codex overall.  Still nothing to even come close to the top tier stuff and NO reason for me to put down $50 for the incomplete book and “more” later to get the inevitable “supplemental” books and Data Slates/Formations/Whatever Else…

Not sure what comes next for Warmachine...  Mostly painted army ready for the next league...  I'd say they are all ~90% painted...  Well except for the Forge Guard, they're at 0...  Bases and firing arcs need to be done too, so they should be ready to go next time.

Looking at picking up a bit more X-Wing...  The Rebel Freighter looks interesting, and I have a few B-Wings, so I should be able to field a decent if predictable Squadron...  A few more folks were talking about playing Star Trek Attack Wing, so that might come back...  And the 20th is the first D&D Attack Wing OP at the Gopher...  So, some things coming up...

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Time for a break I guess

So, looking like it is time to take a bit of a break from gaming, or at least Warmachine…  3 weeks in a row for what I thought was the League, no games.  So, loads of painting done which is good I guess for the next one if I end up playing.  Just not a lot of people coming out on Wednesday night with the holidays and such.  Pretty frustrating, and coming at a bad time for me.  Just been a LONG 3 weeks with silliness at work hitting hard.  Gotten to the point where I am seriously considering just quitting, taking just about any other job here at the University I guess.  I was looking a while ago, but not a lot of movement at my level.  But I have my resume updated now I guess.  So, wonder if Engineering or Cites will be hiring soon…

So, hopefully Warmachine makes a comeback of sorts after the break.  Was really rather enjoying the game.  Hoping it is not another one that dies out just as I am beginning to really enjoy it.  Star Trek is dead at the moment locally…  Damn shame as WK has actually fixed the game…  The upcoming Dominion Fighters are going to be Borg killers, while being vulnerable to decent builds of normal fleets.  Enough locals still have the game, so perhaps we’ll restart with Kevin running things…  And the D&D Attack wing is looking good…  Guess I’ll break that out and show up next Monday if there are others actually playing to get in a few games and see how it plays…


Not sure what is going on with X-Wing, seems like FFG is having the opposite problem WK is in that they simply have nothing available locally at least…  Might get the YT-2400 to go with my B-Wings and single X-Wing from the base set.  I’d like to get a Y-Wing since I always liked those ships…  No clue how well it plays, and don’t really care all that much.  The Z-95 was another one that I remember Han Solo flying in some of the old books, so…  Will need to find at least one…  Shame that it seems like they cannot get them back in stock…

Monday, December 1, 2014

So, the lads are getting closer to "fully painted"...





See the theme of "Riflemen with Shields" continuing from my 30K Wolves...  And of course there is the completely random assortment of miniatures from various game systems on the table there...  But the Arcanists and Rhulic riflemen have been doing amazingly well for me on the field...  The Avalancher is one that the PP forums has declared "completely useless", but somehow I am able to use it to good effect locally...  Perhaps the local players do not read that forum and do not realize how useless the long ranged, high STR AoE weapon really is...  Lucky me :-)...

So, basement cleaning continuing and moving quickly...  Found even more random "stuff".  Motorcycle is deadlined with an electrical issue...  Tre Craptastic, hopefully something simple, but...  Yes, I know it is winter and riding is "less likely", but...  So, two broken bikes (probably easily fixable), anyone want them cheap?

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Light hobby week again...


So, another light hobby week…  No gaming last week and with Thanksgiving this week, it is looking very much like the same.  Understandable, most folks have better things to do during the holidays J…   And with my guard cat being as demanding as he has been recently, not a lot of painting done.  I did get base coats on some of my  Rhulic stuff.  Specifically, both Heavy Jacks have a base coat and are fully assembled.  The Arcanist Corps are assembled with most of their paint actually on…  Need to come up with something for the tabard though.  They are an expensive unit in game terms, but they are really quite horrifyingly effective.  The ability to simply set everything nearby on fire alone would make them a serious contender for “auto include” status.  Combined with decent damage, a ranged AOE and immunity to fire?  Mkay…  Downsides being: Slow (a fairly common Dwarven thing), 4 points for 3 models that frankly are not THAT hard to kill and…  Well, I haven’t seen much else.  High Shields riflemen are almost done as are the Artillery team…  Forge Guard is stuck at zero though.  Not having any luck coming up with a paint scheme that I am going to be happy with.  The “uniform” look of painting them exactly like the rest would be “ok”, but

Looking at the game itself, I have a really good 35 point list and can pretty easily field 50 points.  15 and 25 points are “eh” as my lists tend to be a lot more one dimensional and the matchup pretty much determines how well I do.  At the 35+ point level at least I have options and feel like I can at the very least compete against almost anything.  Frankly, not a lot of “tricks” in my list, it is pretty straightforward and pragmatic.  I feel that fits the Dwarves quite well and their army list reflects that.  Not to say that some of the stuff does not have the potential for use in a combo or a trick, but in general it is pretty straight forward.  Not to say simple or easy to play by any means.  This army does not have any of the obvious “easy buttons” that a lot of other armies do.  Eventually I’ll probably get the Rhulic Colossal and the Ogryn Assault Corps…  I can field 50 points without difficulty, with those probably 100 points if I have that kind of time to play…

Looking to get back to STAW again soon…  The OP events AFTER the Borg silliness look like they’ll be fun, and one is based on one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation with Cmdr Riker being assigned to a Klingon Bird of Prey…  Probably my favorite ST ships overall, so happy to see more of them…


Gearing up for the D&D Attack Wing too…  So far have the 4 Dragons for the family to use.  Need to get them out and play a few games, and hoping that the OP event gets scheduled soon at the Gopher…  Seen a few of the blind buy figures, looking forward to the Paladin and the Ranger the most I think, but that’s more to do with my preferences than game play potential…  Like I said, not having played the game, I have no real basis for comparison.  Thinking the Dragons are going to be pretty darn powerful, and I’m not even sure the point level we’ll play at locally… 

Monday, November 17, 2014

So, made it to the other side... Look miniatures!

So, craptastic last week...  Not a whole lot moving on my hobby front.  I DID pick up Chang's Bird of Prey for STAW, it is a really good little ship with some insane potential for movement tricks under cloak.  Machts Nichts against a Borg with their 360 arc and high attacks, but against pretty much everything else...  Looking like we'll go to bigger games and looking beyond the Borg centered OP events.  I think we will be able to bring back the game with a few changes, but we'll see.  And as Wizkids has posted a whole raft of rules changes and clarifications it looks REALLY good for STAW, assuming we can get the local group back together or grow it in other ways.  Cautiously optimistic...  But for my purposes, it looks like this game is finally back to worth playing...  Well, once the Borg OP events are done :-)  Still not a fan of those...

Warmachine...  Some painting and assembly of Dwarves (Rhulic Mercenaries).  Got in several more games, and the Arcanist Corps is pretty darn powerful.  Think Fire Benders for Avatar fans.  Immune to Fire which HAS come up, but more importantly, they can threaten a huge area and just set everything close on fire...  I honestly think they have done almost as much damage by simply catching things on fire through their various spells and just hitting in HtH as they have by hitting lower (level/value/toughness?  Not sure what really makes sense here...)So, yes, the Arcanists are kind of my answer to being swarmed by hordes of cheap crappy troops…  Well, that and the fact that I can (and DO) bring loads of Artillery support.  Learned my lesson about trusting direct fire to do everything.  Warmachine really needs you to have a much more balanced approach to not get sucker punched by a hard counter.  And this game HAS hard counters to just about everything I’ve seen so far.  Just not always obvious.  The Bear (Brun and Lug) is my big HtH threat at the moment, though I have the Wroughthammer Rockham fully assembled and mostly painted in preparation to fielding.  Traded for it and was really happy to see the previous owner had modified the figure to make it less “unwieldy”.  The figure as shipped is running, so one foot on the ground is not perhaps the most stable setup for such a top heavy piece.  This one is essentially kneeling with one knee down assuming a good firing position…  FAR more stable.  But in any case a second big nasty HtH threat.  The Bear has actually gotten 3 caster kills in my last four games.  For 9 points I think it is insanely undercosted with the “Flank” rule and a good charge in…  But it IS RAW/RAI I think.  Certainly NOT out of line with a lot of other stuff out there.  Just REALLY good for what I can fit into a Rhulic list.  Nothing subtle, Brun charges, then Lug to finish it off.  Whatever “it” is.  I HAVE failed to kill off a Heavy Jack (Tom’s Convergence one), but that was mostly a series of horribly low Damage rolls.  Even on average, it tears most things up.  OTOH, it will also die to its equivalent in similar situations, so…  With those being my ONLY models with Pathfinder naturally and with General Ossum’s ability helping the Dwarf at least move through my own troopers…  It makes the Bear an excellent counterpunch unit as the enemy rushes forward to prevent me from simply using Artillery/Ranged Attacks to hit them from across the field.

Used the General for several games, I think I have that one figured out.  Watched enough games with Joe’s Gorton list to have a pretty good grasp as to what that entails.  No one locally has used Durgen as far as I can tell, so perhaps that will be my next one…  His tiered list is not something I think I’ll bother with.  Nothing really all that useful there for me at least.  The General gets to start the game with ALL of his upkeep spells in force, etc….  So REALLY useful.  Getting -1 point on the Avalancher and the ability to field more Artillery is “neat”, but certainly not worth the limitations.  And Durgen himself seems like a pretty much one man wrecking crew...  I'd call him a "lone wolf" type as he seems like he does not have any particular synergy with anything else in the Rhulic list...  The General is the exact opposite.  He has great synergy with almost everything Rhulic.  But he is sorely lacking standing on his own I think.  I HAVE done a bit of damage with his standard 12" range Dam 12 pistol, but really NOT what he is there for.  Durgen on the other hand has AP or Carpet Bomb in addition to Reach and a good Str weapon.  Immunity to Blast is pretty big, and "Primed" cast say, on some of the Forge Guard makes for an interesting if somewhat risky and high casualty damage to the enemy...  VERY Dwarven though...  We may fall, but those bastards are coming with us...  So, perhaps not overly competitive, but VERY much my play style.  We'll see.  Durgen is assembled a bit differently for me with the hammer resting against the base for stability...

Not a lot for me going on with 30/40K at the moment...  Gathered up my resin FW Spartan, will probably post it for trade and see what interest it gets...  Frankly, regretting purchasing it at this point, but I could just shelf it and dig it up in a few months/years when I rotate back to 40K...  At this point I am separating and shelving my various armies and cleaning up the basement a bit at a time.  Not really getting far on that if I'm honest...  My giant cat has decided that I need to snuggle with him, so not a lot of uninterrupted hobby time :-)  The giant (Maine Coon mix) cat decides you will pay attention, you probably should...

Thursday, November 6, 2014

So, hobbies... I might have too many of them...



So, AAR for the STAW game for the OP3 in the Collective…  Playing a completely cooperative game, we were able to easily defeat the Borg.  Now saying that, we communicated our intent with the Borg and minimized the Attacks.  None of our ships died and we killed the Cube and Sphere easily.  Saying easily, we wound up throwing enough dice at it to get through the insane Defense the Borg got in that scenario.  So, we beat it and since I had already won the “big prize” I was more than willing to just kill Borg.  Much more fun game.  I actually brought a fairly odd build that allowed me to play Romulan Faction Pure and still have the ability to cancel out more than enough attacks to simply outlast anything else if it came to that…  It did not, so I wasted a lot of points to cancel out 12 dice attacks that did not ever happen.  Still, I had a fair number of attack dice between my Valdore and Gal Gath’Throng…  Oh, and the blind buy Dominion Attack ship…  Eh, wasn’t as good as the Vorta Vor, but not a horrible ship.  Now that we will more or less be required to field 3+ ships (2+blind if that is the scenario), getting some good small ships that can actually DO something is quite nice.  Tempted to pick up a few more ships, and probably will to fill out the last few fleets, but it does seem that the game is on hiatus at least locally.

Tempted to pick up some X-Wing to round out my Rebel fleet there, but almost none on the shelf locally.  Tells me either wildly popular or FFG cannot keep up with supply/demand.  Frankly, not so sure I will not get bored quickly with the MUCH more limited builds.  Could just be my perception of the game though.  STAW has a LOT more “deck building” with so many cards, combinations, and factions…  2.5 Factions in X-Wing (OK, “3”), and much more uniform.  So, the complete unavailability of the game locally has at least kept me out of purchasing it J…  LOADS of Lambda class Shuttles and one of the new TIE type fighters on the shelf.  Rebels get E Wings and…  I guess there was a HWK ship as well…  No X or Y Wings or even the Falcon, so not a lot I am interested in.  Shame, I would like to get in a few games but with only a few B-Wings (nice ships, but…) and the Starter X-Wing somewhat limited…  So, CAN play a 100 point game easily enough I guess even if it is not going to go well for me J…  That and the pace for releases from WK is REALLY fast compared to the X-Wing stuff…  Good and bad from that, I find I want fewer of the releases, and while I think they are finally taking steps to rein in the Borg silliness and stupidly powerful card combos…  Hoping it is not too late…

Chatting with one of the new guys playing 40K at the Gopher…  Apparently a lot of folks in IT play the various games offered out there, who knew J ?  He played back in the old days…  4th edition for him, but he sold off his Eldar.  Picked up Orks from the Starter(s) that folks were buying up.  He enjoys playing, but goes in knowing full well he has nothing to deal with AV 14 or the big MCs that are dominating the game at this point really.  Yes, he has a few things that might be able to theoretically do the job, but really?  No.  Any plan relying on “roll lots of 6’s” seems like it will be a bad one.  So, looking like the BA and Tyranids get the next big box set of doom.   Meh.  I play a BA successor chapter, so the BA specific stuff will not be useful or frankly needed as I have a fairly large Fleshtearers force already.  Yes, my wife does get extra points for putting up with all of my “hobby hording” and the sheer numbers of the little toy soldiers in the basement.  But it yet another Marine based force that I can field.  Dozens of Vehicles, probably close to the “actual” number of FT that are still functional at this point in the storyline.  I have well over 100 of the lads, not sure exact numbers.  So, reinforced Company at the least and last I heard, that was a significant portion of their fighting force.  Shame that is only one of my “big” armies.  And still not really seeing any reason to come back from my self-imposed exile from the game.  Tyranids might well become playable, so that is a good thing in and of itself I suppose.

REALLY one of the things that needs to happen is that the dichotomy between the Monstrous Creatures and Vehicle rules for things like Dreadnaughts needs to just go away.  The Marine DN is complete crap compared to the equivalent MCs…  Not even getting to the big ones like the Eldar Wraith Knight, the Wraith Lord is pretty amazing these days.  And frankly, I would put the WL on the very low end of the MC spectrum.  Flying Psychic MCs that are all but immune to the overwhelming bulk of the basic weapons in the game?  Yeah, sure, no problem…  What could go wrong?  Oh, it can guarantee casting Invisibility on yet another MC so it too can be immune, even in HtH?  Sure, why not two?  So, Vehicles ARE better in this edition, but still lag FAR behind MC.  I think they need to scrap one or the other and be consistent across the board.  The Grey Knights are an army that has BOTH in the same slot.  With the death of the Str 8 (for 5 points) TL AC arms, I do not think many people have been fielding their DNs in favor of the Dread Knights which do almost everything (Not the enhanced Aegis suit, but really, who is bothering to cast things ON Grey Knights?  EA does not help deal with Blessings, etc….) the DNs do, and FAR better…  And cleaning my basement I have…  Well, a LOT of DNs J…  Inheriting several armies and those days when the house on Green Street was briefly a GW store (and when we had a LOT more spare money for hobby toys) left me with a whole bunch of the things.


So, back to painting my Warmachine Dwarves…

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

STAW Collective OP 3 at the Armored Gopher Tomorrow...

So, I have a few choices...  I can bring my standard Federation Dreadnought based on the Enterprise E or I can bring a Romulan "fun, but sneaky" build...

The Romulan build is as follows:

Romulan OP 3 1

Resource: Fleet Captain Independent (Dominion) (5)

I.R.W. Valdore (30)
Alidar Jarok (4)
FleetCaptain (0)
Counter Attack (3)
Direct Command (2)
Varel (10)
Centurion (4)
Interphase Generator (2)
Advanced Cloaking (3)
Ship SP: 58

IRW Gal Gath'Thong (18)
Donatra (4)
Plasma Torpedoes (4)
Ship SP: 26

Total Build SP: 89

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html


The Valore can cloak, stay cloaked and continue to use Green maneuvers to get the +1 Attack.  Between Varel and the Centurion I have two attack negations and the CPT can discard an Elite Talent to negate a third (actually worse, I can force it to NOT attack my ship, so may have to attack the other player's) and Interphase Generator to drop damage to 1 from another attack...  So, I think I can survive for a while at least...  Have a potential 9-10 dice Attack for a round at least...  So, might just be the ships to bring.  Can swap the Gal Gath'Thong's Plasma Torpedoes for the 5 point version to get the 90 points exactly if needed...  

Standard Klingon "We're just here to shoot things" list of course is a possibility:
Klingon Borg 90 2

Resource: Flagship Independent (Klingon) (10)

Vor'cha Class (26)
Gowron (4)
Ship SP: 30

I.K.S. ChTang (22)
Martok (6)
Flagship (0)
Ship SP: 28

K'T'Inga Class (22)
Ship SP: 22

Total Build SP: 90

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

With the generic K'Tinga getting a 7-8 dice attack from Range 2-3 with re-rolls?  It throws out a LOT of damage.  Just cannot survive long.  So, I would HAVE to kill the Cube by the third or fourth turn to stand any chance with this list...  And depending on how cooperative the opponent is, well...  

Fed list is:
List Name

Resource: Flagship Independent (Fed) (10)

Sovereign Class (30)
Jean-Luc Picard - Crew (5)
Flagship (0)
Cheat Death (5)
Cheat Death (5)
Adm. James T. Kirk (5)
William T. Riker (5)
Montgomery Scott (5)
Elizabeth Shelby (2)
Hikaru Sulu (3)
Dorsal Phaser Array (6)
Tactical Station (4)
Multi-Adaptive Shields (5)
Ship SP: 80

Total Build SP: 90

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

Not nearly so survivable and lacking the Transphasic Torpedoes of the Voyager I am not so sure this will be able to throw out that damage that is needed to overwhelm the Borg quickly.  Good ship though, an the conservative build for me...  I am leaning toward the Romulan or Klingon though.  Romulan just because common wisdom dictates that the Romulans are simply not playable in a Faction Pure environment.  I disagree...

Monday, October 27, 2014

Seaforge marching, STAW restarting perhaps and 30/40K stuff in the distance...

So...  Looks like I have my Sea Forge force force assembled...  Well, en route or here in various stages of painting/assembly.  Now I just need to get in some more games with the lads.  Next actual league starts up In a few weeks.  The Journeyman League was good for me getting back into the game.  Learning the ins and outs of several armies, losing close to half of my games, but in general having fun.  One or two games were not, but in one case it was the limits of my Journeyman force.  All shooting vs immune to shooting will always end badly for my shooters...  The other standout bad game was just a bad match and my unfamiliarity with Hordes combined with an army built in a more "power gamer" fashion.  Fun force vs hard competitive will almost always be a bad one for the fun force. 

So, have to pick up some more light Jack frames for the Dwarves...  Got a few heavy frames inbound with some more Confrontation outbound...  Have the ability to run a Heavy Warbeast in Sea Forge, and it should be interesting...  A little light on Infantry, but I should be able to field a good force...

On to STAW...  One last event Wednesday for the Collective series...  I am actually in the lead for that one and with one of the other players dropping out think that as long as I get in my three games I will win the overall event.  So, a Galaxy Class ship, pretty good.  I already have the Stargazer, so will get that to someone else.  I have to say I dislike the rules for this event, but will give it a shot.   Probably play my Enterprise E force, or perhaps something Dominion or even Romulan...  Just have to survive longer than the opponent :-)...  Ideally kill the Borg, but...

WizKids has released some suggested rules updates for the tournaments the link is here: http://wizkidsgames.com/blog/2014/10/24/star-trek-attack-wing-updated-suggested-tournament-format/ ...  Essentially, 50 points max for ships, 3 ship minimum, etc...  So essentially the recent move to Borg win everything with repeatable attack immunity has finally been noticed and looks like there is actually a move to correct this.  Guess we will see if it is too little too late.  I hope not, good game but as long as some legal (currently) forces still exist, it will be problematic.  We went to "ship pure" or "faction pure" locally and it does kind of negate some of the silly combos but there are simply some Factions like the Federation and Borg that are better than the rest in that format.  Point caps and forcing larger numbers of ships will if nothing else at least make a FAR greater number of the Factions/Ships actually playable.  They are concluding their first Regional events and it has been EXTREMELY disappointing for a lot of us looking at the same builds being the only ones that do well.  Totally legal, so no complaints on the gamers actually playing what is almost a no brainer winning force.  I do not mean "no brainer" in that it wins in the deck building phase, or that it does NOT take skill to win it, just that NOT taking these sorts of forces just reach out and smack you upside the head with how silly you are being by NOT using them.  Or watching players get tabled with ease by experts using the uber lists...  After looking over the restrictions in place and thinking of what would actually win given those limits...  Well, any desire I had to go and play in that environment quickly fled.  Shame, I think it would have been fun, but still remember some of the competitive CCGs I played in back in the ancient times and how many times I very nearly lost my temper there...  Best perhaps not to risk it.

Kind of where I am with 40K...  Reading over some of the excellent 30K stuff and frankly looking at my Wolves (VI Legion) force.  Yes, I CAN build a tailored "Eldar Killer" force to deal with the current top tier list.  But then it is pretty boring to play even against the Eldar it is built to kill.  With the 30K Land Raiders and Spartan hulls getting immunity to Melta (for a price), I CAN simply mount up and drive into them with the Twin Linked Las Cannons blazing away and splashing Wave Serpents left and right.  Once they are dismounted, then the Storm Bolters can open up and kill their Infantry pretty easily.  Wraith Lords lack Inv saves, so the sheer number of Las Cannon I field is a problem.  The Wraith Knight is an issue, but being completely immune to Str 6-7 I really CAN simply take a turn or two and fire everything into the Knight to kill it.  Kind of the : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX-qK4qG2EY


"Bring me EVERYONE" response.  Having only faced one with this particular army, have to say that after two turns of 8 x TLLC fire (plus a few random Meltas/missiles), it simply evaporated.  I do not think that was an anomalous result.  And at the end of the day I have a bunch of Terminators on the field.  Troops, yes, but no "Objective Secured" with the changeover from Sixth to Seventh not being complete for the 30K world...  So, a skilled player would be able to bog me down and grind my force into dust...  Or at the VERY least prevent me from contesting objectives for the easy win...  So, slowly painting the lads and we'll seen them again in a long while I suspect.  Shame, the Cataphract Class Terminator armor is REALLY quite nice...

Friday, October 17, 2014

Waiting for answers, so... Gaming stuff :-)

So, cleaning up the basement and getting in some painting…  Not finding a color scheme for my Forge Guard that I particularly like.  I think that the Grey-Green with Copper trim would look boring on them, albeit uniform with the rest of my force.  The half Grey-Green and white looks pretty terrible, an I’m just not sure what else would work.  The Metallic Green I use for my Circle Armor might be OK(ish) and I might test one out…  A Forrest Green perhaps?  Not sure…   But have the Bear base coated, all of my Warcasters are assembled and getting some paint on them.  Slowly coming together.  Only thing I am lacking to field it as a proper army would be more War Jacks.  I have only the 2 Lights which are good for what they are, but…

Have to admit the Colossal looks interesting to me, and since I am seeing more and more of them at the Gopher…  We had a pretty long chat about them and the 40K equivalents with the Knights and Titans at the store this week, and it is pretty obvious that I am not alone on my “wait and see” to see what happens to 40K.  The MCs in general being just better than Vehicles and 40K being perceived as completely broken as long as the Eldar are unchanged and the Tau are still right up there with them.  The Colossals are big and powerful but really do not seem overly difficult to deal with.  Contrasting to the Eldar Wraith Knight which IS hard to deal with.  The Eldar has speed, HtH ability, great shooting attacks and can be easily healed.  I guess the Colossal CAN be healed, but not as easily as it is damaged.  The Rhulic Colossal is 18 points, and while I can see this being half of my Army (coming in at 11-13 points) it will be a pretty good one I think…  Not game breaking good, but a huge target and it fits the “Dwarf” mentality of being slow to move, but resilient and difficult to move OFF of the ground they choose to fight on.  Some good synergy with a lot of my Rhulic Infantry allowing firing without obscuring the target.  So, I can screen my big War Jack with my Infantry an still shoot.  Keep one of the War Casters up there to protect my lads from random blast damage, especially with my own 4” blasts going out only 10”, so chances are good I’ll be firing “Danger Close” to my own lads.  But in any case I guess I can trade off some MtG for more Rhulic stuff… 

Cygnar is coming along for me.  Mostly I look at the old casters as “OK”, with the newer ones seeming to have a much easier time dealing with the current environment.  CPT Kraye and Constance Blaize are two I think that are my “top tier” ones.  Blaize leads out my Paladins, an becomes essentially a guided missile killing off War Casters or whatever she needs to.  Effectively MAT 9, Weapon Master with a POW 13 Spear giving her 2” Reach…  And she can boost of course.  Just have to have something else “Morrowan” in there with her.  Thus the Paladins and the Solo in every list for her.  Kraye is just all about Cavalry.  Light Jacks with the Light Cav rules?  Yes Please!  So, I have moved from “Cygnar Shoots Things” to a more reliable assassination run sort of game with the Paladins of all people providing the ability to simply walk over and kill the War Caster…  Not what I expected, but very effective.

One more STAW event on the calendar in a few weeks.  It is the OP 3 for the Collective stuff, so fighting against the Borg again…  Faction Pure, so I’ll probably load up the Enterprise E, Sovereign  Class ship and see what I can do.  I STRONGLY suspect it will be a very short game as the Borg cube itself is simply too stupidly powerful, and not a lot of folks will be playing in any case.  Some of the lads are looking to get a “Space Day” together at the Gopher and looking forward to that I think…  Would love to get in more casual games I think.  The hyper competitive ones that the prize ships with their potential game breaking power and rarity are I think causing the game to die out quickly here.  A shame, kill off a few of the stupid combos and perhaps there should be an adjustment of some of the ships point costs.  Borg mostly, perhaps Voyager an Enterprise D…   Basically, the 360 fire arc is simply too good, and the Federation one is fairly limited.  I think the problem is corrected and there is a really good, fair point value assigned to that with the card shipping with the Enterprise E.  So, really just a few tweaks, but WizKids appears to have left this game on autopilot as they prepare for the Dragon game hitting this Month.  So, hoping they get it together soon as this has the potential to be a really good, long term game rather than just a “2 year run” game that it is looking like WK has budgeted for…


So, let’s see…  40K shelved, 30K some further assembly coming along…  STAW dying, hope to revive…  X-Wing looks good, but have limited ships and REALLY not thrilled to be buying into yet another game.  Warmachine/Hordes continuing to grow and be fun to play.

Monday, October 13, 2014

So, when DOES 8th Edition hit?

So, been reading a few of the gaming blogs that I normally read and there has been a trend I noticed…  There have been a lot of folks noticing the GENERAL power level and balance of the Codices is actually quite good…  As long as you completely ignore the giant elephants in the room of the Eldar and to a lesser extent the Tau books.  Now, a number of the writers are approaching this from the “competitive” perspective where taking anything but the All Star/best of breed/most stupidly under costed units is just silly.  Money on the table and all making this a “less friendly” game and all.  Not like high stakes poker money mind, but the principle is exactly the same.

I don’t really have any answers or anything of course, but given the current situation where there is one particular Army with one HUGE glaring UC unit and a bunch of things that are simply better than the baseline for the game in the standard Marine…  The game is just not really much worth playing at this time.  Yes, you can still play and even have fun, so I am NOT saying drop it like it is cursed or anything…  Just that as soon as one side breaks out the tier one list, the game is pretty much over (“What if they held a war and only one side showed up” a quote attributed to Lucifer from Robert Asprin’s Myth series) for the other side if they do not also have such a list.  So long as there is an understanding and NO ONE brings the uber lists, you can have a fun game and both sides might well be competitive.  Then it comes to dice and skill, and I think overall WK has done an excellent job.  Overall, but until they send Vinnie and Guido with a Nerf Bat to have a little chat with the two armies in particular and there is a complete rebalancing of those forces…  Well, the game itself is broken and I know I am not alone in the “let’s see what happens in the longer term, until then let’s play ‘X’”…  So, excellent articles here (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/10/40k-editorial-are-terminators-done.html) here (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/10/goatboys-monday-thoughts-new-release.html) and (http://www.houseofpaincakes.com/2014/10/terrible-armies-id-love-to-build.html)...  Common theme there for me being several of the armies I’d actually LIKE to play and how I kind of feel “Why Bother” breaking them out, packing them up and heading to the Gopher to get stomped into dust by pretty much anything I’d face.  Mind, I might do well against some.  There is a young lady playing a very colorful Chaos Demon force that could easily go either way, though I would consider myself the underdog as she can minimize the random silliness and just make me roll armor saves with each casualty being bad and grind me out of existence.  Sadly that is about the only army I can think of offhand that I would not be immediately outclassed with.  Painfully and obviously.  IG (or whatever they are called, IA in the older days) has the tanks and special weapons to wipe me in a few turns.  Marines have Grav weapons and bikes to move wherever…  Wolves have…  Well, no one locally playing them anymore except me and that is why J…  Eldar and Tau?  Beaucoup shots, too many of which are able to simply ignore my 2+ save…  And even without that, having so many shots and given the game mechanic of 1/6 fails whatever you are attempting means that weight of fire (“Quantity has a Quality all its own” one I’ve heard attributed to Stalin) will simply win every time.  So, Terminator based forces, even 30K ones are mostly dead at this time.  30K, I CAN bring them in Land Raiders or Spartans that ignore Melta, attach Medics, etc. making them ALMOST viable.  Assuming that the TO is OK mixing 30K and 40K armies in a League/Event…  Still die to the Xenos avalanche of dice though, so it is not even the answer in the longer run, just something that might work once or twice…

So, basically I shelved my DA (Consecrators) force long ago.  Not long after the new Codex hit honestly.  I played it in a League or two, but with some stupid scenarios (NONE of which were the fault of the local organizer, this is all GW) highlighting just how stupidly under powered or over costed the DA really were, especially with the Vanilla Marines book hitting soon after and getting everything the DA could do, but better and cheaper.  Being hit with IG forces that could come on from any table edge (table was a narrow platform) with rending las guns and squads that could respawn when I finally killed them all to come back the next turn with full squads again…  Not even a little fun.  The Ravenwing player getting wiped by the swarm of Heldrakes pretty well drove him from the game as well…  Yeah, the $50 book still irks me there.  Vanilla Marines are a good book, and I enjoyed playing them.  Until it became painfully obvious that the Marine as a baseline for the game was surpassed by the Tau and Eldar in every way.  Now, the Marines CAN in some lists compete in a fairly limited fashion against a well build tier one list, but overall?  My Crimson Fists are playable, but still a HUGE long shot against most.  White Scars bikers are decent, and until you hit the Chaos player who brought a Heldrake or two you will likely do well.  Against them?  No.

But looking at the GK and DE, things have been brought more in line…  And omitting the problem armies?  7th edition has the potential to be an extremely well balanced and fun game.  If it survives.  Not really sure what to hope for myself, an eventual rebalancing when the NEXT edition of the T&E books come out, or the whole thing to crash and a complete rebuild?  First one I think, but when will that happen?  Last two Armies with soft cover books are due in the next few Months…  Are the priorities at GW the same as mine?  Um, no…  But I would hope they recognize that this IS an issue and should be corrected for the long term viability of the game…  J  Yes, I doubt it too, but just typing between meetings here so why not shoot for the moon?

Does bring me to Warmachine…  Again.  First time I got into the game it was back when WM started up, and I was still getting over the silliness of 40K third edition and being involved with some of the hyper competitive tournaments back then.  WM was NOT balanced by any means, but it had potential.  And eventually it did become a fun and balanced game.  So, back playing that game now and seeing how nice it is.  Haven’t actually seen the Ghordson Earthbreaker, but will probably end up with one…  Even if I have to trade off some FW stuff or MtG J…  Finding I have a LOT more of that than I remembered.  Guessing that quitting drinking a few years back has been quite helpful in that (among other) respect…  But, need to trade for or pick up some of the Warjacks and the Earthbreaker looks like it will be one to have on the shelf at least. 


Guess this is a long rambling way of asking: “So, when’s 8th Edition hitting” or at least “When are the new Tau and Eldar books due?”

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Painting Dwarves and Terminators... Not a lot of playing, but...

So, assembling and painting my rebuilt Rhulic force for Warmachine. Going with a Vallejo Green/Grey for most of the armor.  Pretty sure this was one of the WWII paints that I was using with my Flames of War US Airborne army for their webbing IIRC, but it works with the copper/bronze trim.  Need to come up with colors for the Shield Gunner shields, and some color to paint in the forward arc for the army.  The Blue I use for m Cygnar might be good, Royal or Regal Blue I think...  Goes well with the Copper.

Need to come up with a color scheme for my Forge Guard...  Not sure I want them to be the same as the rest of the lads.  On the box there is a scheme with half white and half green...  Maybe half the Grey Green?  Not so sure I will be OK with white.  The few Medics I've painted for my 30/40K forces were kind of a PITA with the white...

Artillery assembled as well, and the Warcasters are mostly done as well...  Well, assembled, and I have some paint on Gorten and Durgen at least.  Gorten is almost base coated, so could field now I think.  Heck, I have almost a full army ready to roll...  Have to admit I am surprised how quickly it is coming together...

With my Warhammer stuff, I have the Knight coming along slowly, Cataphractii almost done and I am deciding on whether or not to sell/trade off the Forgeworld Spartan...  Not sure I will ever get around to assembling it, so might be something to trade for the Rhulic Colossus...

Found one of my old partner decks and just out of curiosity I checked one of the random "we buy MtG" sites...  The deck was one I called a "Drop" deck with 4 Eureka and  4 Concordant Crossroads backed with loads of big trample creatures like Forces of Nature and Colossus of Sardinia (?)...  People are buying the Eureka card for something like $60...  Oh, and found my old Arabian Knights stuff...  Might be enough in the basement to buy the new(er) motorcycle, but I'll probably do something sensible like pay bills and pay down debt...

Monday, October 6, 2014

Heigh Ho! Wonder if the Rhulic Dwarves sing as they march... And 30K Legions mustering.

So, the gathering of the Dwarven Clans continues...  Just needing to complete a few more trades for actual Warjacks but I have the basis of the force in hand now...  Not assembled or painted yet, but I now have:

The Three Warcasters, Thor Steinhammer, Mortar Team, full unit of Forge Guard, full unit of Shield Gunners, with Brun and Lug are in the mail...  Not a bad start at all.  Not sure how many of the Heavy jacks I'll end up picking up, but have to admit more than a handful seems unlikely.  Like the Avalancher with the BFG class weapon, and the Rockham is a pretty devastating if extremely short ranged Jack...  Driller?  Slow, but tough.  Probably have to snag one just to have for the "Battle Box" builds and it is a decent "linebacker" to hang out near the Warcaster.  Probably needing 2-4 more of the Blaster/Gunner light Warjacks because they are pretty darn useful, and with my plan of making them with magnetized weapons swappers they will become my "general" use Warjacks...

Looks like I misread the Arcanists, and so will snag them ASAP.  For whatever reason I was thinking that they could ONLY cast their spells when they killed something in HtH making them "eh" at best, but being able to do that in addition, well...  Not so sure that the wee Rockbottom fig is needed, but he IS a Dwarf, so will probably snag one just to have him to round out some lists.

Looking at the Tier lists as the way this army becomes competitive,..  So, a cheap Solo for the General's force to get my Upkeep spells on at the beginning of the game and not having to pay for them on the first turn seems like a VERY good thing.  I think that if I play it right I could actually get an Alpha Strike type force that can put some real damage anywhere on the field on turn one before the other player can even react or cast spells.  NOT a friendly build, so I'll likely not use it myself, but the potential to do this exists, and I think that there are some forces that would be absolutely crippled if not just wiped off the field with a few well placed shots.  But I think all of the Seaforge stuff is quite strong, albeit not in the most obvious way.  I think Joe and I will play it differently, but there are going to be 2 Rhulic players locally...

So, in the Legion I have my next 5 Cataphract class Terminator Armor suits base coated...  Not sure if I will magnetize them since I now have so bloody many of them...  But with a 10 man squad and a Spartan I have that giant brick that I can just roll up the middle of the field...  The Spartan with all of the upgrades gets stupid hard to stop, especially when I can add the Techmarine and a Medic in the Squad...

Dark Eldar came out with...  Well, it was not really a bang.  Shame that Mike moved off to area 51 with his GK and DE forces.  There were MANY epic battles he and I had, kind of an Army Navy thing with him being former Navy and all...  But I do kind of wonder how he feels about it.  Guessing not so great because they kind of lost a lot of how he played them.  He was more of an Inquisition player with his GK, so guessing his Inq force is fine...  Hopefully his DE force will work out well...  But then, the DLC hits almost immediately to fill in some of the things that the $50 codex somehow just didn't have the room for...  Things like that are keeping me firmly away from 40K, especially with how completely packed the 30K books really are these days...  So, missing the League that starts tonight.  But not sure I'm ready to break out the Wolves again anytime soon.  Especially with my Seaforge coming along so well...

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Gaming locally, Warmachine, STAW, and the jobs that support such activity :-)


So, got stomped into the ground last night playing Warmahordes…  Well, it was not REALLY that bad, the game itself was enjoyable, Karl is a fun opponent and it was just a horribly bad matchup for my aged Cygnar list.  LT Caine is not the caster I ever particularly enjoyed using, and with the almost complete reliance on “We Shoot Things” from a distance while we are on the move for a “run and gun” feel vs. a HtH list in a scenario where you simply lose if there is no model from your side in the 8” wide strip across the middle of the field at the end of any turn (starting on turn 3).  Not an instant lose from the beginning, but with the bulk of his forces hiding in instantly cast swamp terrain and thus immune to my shooting attacks combined with the feat of “everything is knocked down in my control area” to make all of my Defense meaningless…  J  Well, it cemented my decision that LT Caine will likely be relegated to shelf duty and never played again.  Too many other casters that would have actually done MUCH better and too much of the old (early MK1) stuff I have simply has no real chance in a modern environment.  I have had some fair amount of success with the “later” casters like CPT Kraye being Cavalry and immune to a lot of things that are “gotchas” dealing with the modern stuff and frankly ALL of the Hordes stuff.  The ability to never be Knocked Down and immunity to Free Strikes is huge.  The fact that his War Jacks are simply better as Cavalry than normal Jacks is a bonus.  Time I think to break out the dedicated HtH stuff for Cygnar.  The things I never used in MK1 because they were silly and OP?  Seems like they’ll be about right against some of the things I’m seeing now J…  Stormguard assuming I can find all ten of them will be a good solid “block” of Infantry until I can switch out to my Rhulic army.  Got the first two of my “new” (to me) “gun bunnies” assembled and ready to basecoat.  Plan is to magnetize the weapons as the two variants are the Gunner and Blaster with only the gun being different…  Top mounted and simple enough to swap, cannot imagine the Dwarves wouldn’t do this themselves being all about efficiency after all.

Finding the Feats are where the older and newer casters are simply built on two very different scales…  The older “REALLY OP” ones like Sorcha are actually toned down now and seem pretty much about equal in terms of power with a lot of the new ones.  The ones that were average or “eh” in the old game are really quite bad now….  LT Caine for example:  Can shoot everything.  Once each with his pistols.  So, it would be the absolute bane of a light Infantry force that for whatever reason decided to bum rush him and wound up with the bulk of their forces within 12” of him.  So…  Not likely to happen, certainly not more than once.  Compared to the “Everything is Frozen” within 12” or bringing back War Jacks/Beasts?  It is pretty obvious that some of the things have simply been overtaken and left far behind, especially in an era where you can shut down shooting or HtH pretty easily.  Or when your big ability affects only “Focus” or “War Jacks”…  Half of the game shrugs and ignores it.  I think the Rhulic casters (all three of them) are all at least beyond the point where the truly aged ones simply cannot easily compete, and so they will at the VERY least be interesting to play against some of the nastiness I see hitting the tables.  We’ll see I guess.

At the store, it was great seeing so many people playing…  Tom got his first win with a really nicely painted Khador force, saw: Gators (Hordes:Minions), Protectorate, Skorne, another Rhulic Merc force, Cryx, Everblight, more Khador, Trolls and some Circle IIRC…  I cannot remember them all offhand, but clearly the Warmachine/Hordes has come back locally at least.  Good to see, especially as I have zero interest being the “Press Ganger” again or running things if I can avoid it.  FAR more fun just playing the game for me.  Unfortunately at the same time it appears that STAW is dying along with 40K…  STAW overall seems a good system, they just clearly made some pretty serious…  Well, I’ll call them errors for lack of a better term.  The Gen Con fiasco hurt Wiz Kids credibility in a fairly major fashion.  Now they lost some good customers and lots more are simply not buying as much if at all.  Personally I think a lot of it is kind of overblown, and if WK had handled it better (sell to the people actually playing the bloody game, not the the speculators with dealer badges that got in before the normal badges, or just release them as a retail product…) would have been a non-issue.  But they seem to have taken a page from GW’s “Customer Service” manual and essentially assured themselves that their business model is superior and those silly peasants will get back in line soon enough to give their money to the Company.  I don’t know.  Looking at the shelves at the Gopher, lots of STAW ships there, OP attendance is bottomed out and not sure it will recover.  OTOH, the Star Wars ships are mostly sold out…  Seeing the same parallel with the Privateer Press stuff seeming to move quickly and the 40K/Fantasy stuff…  Well, not so much.  Heck, if I thought for an instant that I would get a good enough price for all of my 40K stuff I’d probably dump it myself.  Won’t happen, there are not many “collectors” out there looking for GW models from the late 80’s to late 90’s/early 2000’s where the bulk of mine were purchased looking realistically the overwhelming majority of what I have in the basement is just junk, along with my comics and random cards from the games I played back then…  Yes, some things like a VERY few of the Magic cards are worth a bunch, but the other 99%?  Fire hazard really J

Initial rounds of trading have netted me the bulk of what I traded off, and store credit from one of those valuable MtG cards looks like it will get me a HUGE chunk of the way back to my Seaforge force in Warmachine.  So, just have to sell off a pair of motorcycles, likely a few random firearms and…  Hmmm.  Dunno.  I know my wife is far less comfortable with me riding the bike, but it is one of the few times I really get to relax and feel completely in control of my surroundings with the bulk of my attention occupied with actually riding the bike, etc…  So, we’ll see what happens long term there.  She wants a new vehicle, so I’ll likely inherit the Escape with the Ranger becoming the vehicle for the girls in a few years when they start driving.  Ideally, I’ll sell off my two bikes and get an older Goldwing…  Or the bikes AND a number of firearms go and I break down and get a much newer bike, maybe even one of those HD ones…  Never been a fan of any particular brand for the brand’s sake like a lot of HD fans, but they do make some nice bikes these days.  FAR more likely to go for something from Honda though as the price is more in line with what I could afford, etc…  And I REALLY prefer the shaft dive bikes to the chain, so…


Job front…  On one hand, things were moving nicely getting my line moved to reflect where I actually have been working the last 3+ years and getting my title, etc. correct for my new(ish) role in “IT Management”…  But then it stalled again.  Getting about to the FTSIOH level for me when I look realistically and find that I would have actually been making more had I simply “punched the clock” in Math for the last 4 years and not killed myself doing this.  And now there are some actual “Management” level jobs opening up North of Green in Engineering, so…  While I hate redoing my resume, it is I think time…

Monday, September 29, 2014

Cleaning up... Staw, WarmaHordes and the Basement of Doom (tm)

So, looking around…  Seems that the STAW group is dying off locally.  Darn shame, the game is overall quite good.  Yes, there are some stupidly overpowered units (ships and cards) and some combos that just break the game in silly ways…  The “Collective” OP events were certainly not helpful as they were clearly NOT play tested in anything like a realistic fashion.  But at a local level at least I think we’ve gotten around a lot of this by tending to play in a more “faction pure” fashion (not EVERY ship needs to be Captained by Jean Luc Picard).  The most recent one we played out last night.  No one actually beat the scenario.  The sheer stupidity of a 12 dice attack with re-rolls meant that the only ship to actually survive was one with a broken and silly combo on it (Weyoun/Varel to “discard Varel to cancel an attack, but Weyoun can disable to prevent the discard, re-enable and repeat as necessary”).  They still failed to actually kill the bloody Borg.  Last Month’s was actually a decent one, if a bit uninspiring…  Do as much damage with your Fleet before time runs out or you all die.  Not a whole lot of incentive to mess with each other, and the games were actually kind of interesting seeing just how much damage your Fleet COULD throw out if you build with only that in mind.  Yes J  I did a LOT better on that one…  But back on target, hoping to get in touch with some of the folks who have quit the game for various reasons and see if a few others might be interested in playing…  Scheduling is of course an issue as this is really a small (and currently dying) fringe game J…  But it really does not take up all that much space in the grand scheme…  So, I guess I start posting on the Facebook groups to see if interest and players cannot be drummed up…

Getting a lot more into Warmachine, and I have to say it is a much more interesting game for me at the moment than 40K.  Perhaps it is the perspective of taking several years off and coming back, but I honestly think that the system is far more balanced and the company producing it is FAR more responsive to issues of unbalance or questions/FAQ’s.  For the most part the local group is very low key and quite relaxed…  Always a few power gamers in just about every competitive group of course, and this is no exception.  But overall, WAY more fun, even when being smacked off the table by say, a Skorne build that was built for maximum efficiency…  Dusted off my Cygnar, but to be honest I am FAR more interested in the Rhulic (Dwarven) forces.  Traded them off when last I left the game…  Ironically for 40K stuff and Confrontation IIRC….  So now trading Confrontation stuff and Magic cards for the rebuilding efforts.  Surprisingly already a good part of the way there now.  Several “new” things since last I had this army, but overall a fairly small force, being Dwarves and all J…   Probably have to proxy some of the things like the Ogrun Assault Corps before dropping the $70 on what looks like it could very well be a mediocre unit at best for instance.  The Hammerhold Forge Guard (think plate armored Dwarves with two handed hammers), and will probably be on my “eventually” purchase list unless I can arrange a favorable trade, and the Colossal looks “neat”…  Saying that though, I am quite hesitant to drop that kind of money on a big “centerpiece” unit if it is not going to get played a whole lot.  I HAVE several of those already for 40K with the Imperial Knight being the only one that I suspect will ever really be one to see a LOT of play time.  The Spartan and Warhound class Titan are both VERY niche pieces that look nice, but really how often would I use them?  Yeah, almost never.  So, should anyone make a serious offer on the Spartan at least I would be VERY tempted to sell/trade it off since it is currently completely bare resin and unassembled.  Brun and Lug are headed my way thanks to some Confrontation Kelts, and I think that I have the basics for a pretty decent force after everything gets here…  Well, a fun force at least as I suspect that I will have some trouble dealing with some of the stuff out there.  But per my usual style, at the very least they’ll know they were in a fight as the Dwarves tend to die hard…


Basement cleaning continues, albeit slowly…  Still finding strange and sometimes interesting things down there.  Trying to get things organized and actually throw out some of the old and useless things these days.  Someday I actually hope to finish at least a big part of the basement as the workout room is pretty much just framed in, and laying down some sort of carpet type flooring and insulating/putting up a celling.  Been a LONG time since I worked in the “construction” area, and frankly I was never particularly good at it…  Built cabinets for a while and then houses between College and finding a real job thanks to one of my house mates (Steve) being a Foreman at a local construction company…  Pay was not great, work conditions were also “not great”, but WAY better (in both areas) than my time in the Army with the added bonus of fewer people actively trying to kill you.  But it kept me paying rent and you know, eating when times were pretty tough.  Took me some time to get some things figured out and frankly decompress into a VERY different reality being a civilian after…  Not really something I talk about, but it was such a stark and massive difference that I had a pretty hard time adjusting back to life here in Champaign/Urbana…  Probably took a LOT longer than it should have because I made a number of really poor choices, but made for some interesting stories I think J…  Just really needed a kick to get myself out of Joe’s (local bar where I worked), and back to “real life”.  J  And now things are so very different….  Amazing wife, kids and am moving into IT Management with a career that has lasted for 15 years here at the University alone…  Never would have thought it possible back then… :-)  All in all, things are going quite well...

Saturday, September 27, 2014

STAW OP 3 tomorrow... And Warmachine being painted

So, going up against the Borg again for OP3...  Solid second place in this one, and I'm not really sure how well this scenario will play out.  Kind of depends on how competitive it becomes.  Cube CAN have a single attack of 12 dice against a single ship, re-rolling misses...  So, expect 9 hits/turn easily enough on the odd turns when my opponent controls the Cube.  Need something that might survive or at least outlast for the win. So, here's what I was thinking of running:

Fed Borg OP3 2

Resource: Flagship Independent (Romulan) (10)

USS Voyager (30)
Jean-Luc Picard (6)
Flagship (0)
Cheat Death (5)
Cheat Death (5)
Adm. James T. Kirk (5)
Montgomery Scott (5)
Hikaru Sulu (3)
Elizabeth Shelby (2)
Tom Paris (4)
Transphasic Torpedoes (10)
Multi-Adaptive Shields (5)
Ship SP: 80

Total Build SP: 90

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

Gives me 8 Defense Dice with re-rolls and at least 1 Battle Stations conversion, and of course with free BS...  Should get a decent number of hits when I attack, and I attack at Captain Skill 11 ("Ours Goes to 11")...  Faction (Federation) Pure and might be fun.  Not sure i will hold against a well built Borg but we'll see...

Slowly rebuilding my Rhulic Dwarves for Warmachine...  Some trades in the works and I;m almost half way back to what I had before stupidly trading them off.  Not a lot of casters, and being limited to the Dwarves and Ogres not a LOT of stuff altogether, but more than I can buy at once of course.  Now to get them painted up...

Motorcycles...  The Silverwing is working, Magna...  Well, not.  Anyone out there familiar with title issues in Illinois?  So, need to get that straight before I can sell it off of course....  Then probably look to sell the Silverwing and buy a Goldwing...  Probably in the 81-83 Range because I do not want to deal with a Stator issue on the 84-87 ones...  The look nice, but I really like the look of the 81-83's as well because they are really just the 4 cylinder version of the Silverwing that I otherwise like...  Just need the highway pegs and the bigger engine I think for more general riding.

Monday, September 22, 2014

So, the Wheel Turns Again :-)

So, cleaning the basement and doing a bit of painting…  Kind of sad in some ways cleaning up and packing away a bunch of things.  My Praetorian IG are all back in their ancient Chessex containers, and my Eldar are back in the GW cases…  Sadly, the Eldar no longer fit in the case, so perhaps a glass cased shelf?  Dunno.  Pretty sure it will be a while before I play 40K again so it may be a “deep storage” for them.  My Marines of various types are assembling in theory…  Cleared off a bunch of room on my painting table, just kind of depressing looking at all that “stuff” I am just packing away.  Not JUST 40K, I have a FoW force that I was painting up at various times…  Some of my old Divisions (8ID, 3AD and 82nd Airborne), so was mostly nostalgia but it is a pretty solid game system…  Just not one I think translates well to “the tournament scene”…  And not a lot of local players/time for me to actually play so…

Resin Forge World Spartan that is not even a little assembled.  Not really sure, I may wind up selling It off, or putting my Wolves together as a 30K Legion.  Works pretty well as I had converted both of my ancient MKI Land Raiders to what was called the “Spartan” class back in the 90’s, so now they fit in as the “new” early series Land Raiders that the Legions can get.  Gives me 2 “Protos” class Land Raiders, the Spartan and then 2 of the “New” MKIII Land Raiders (Crusader and normal).  Wound up trading for a bunch of Terminator suits and picked up some of the Siege Breacher Troops, so I HAVE a bunch of 30K specific things…  Just not sure if anyone is actually playing the 30K stuff anymore, I assume that it would be “legal” for 40K play locally at least as it is actually FAR more balanced than 40K is at this point.  Kind of sad saying that out loud, the previously “silly and OP” branch is now the one doing the far better job balancing stuff…  And with GW going to what I consider a “subscription” model for their main game, I really do not relish the prospect of keeping up, and well…  I’m not.  So, have to make the choice of keeping what I have or getting rid of some/all of it.  Something to think about as I suspect dumping the lots would not get me much in return, and the wheel always seems to turn…  Guessing that someday I’ll be back playing 40K.


Yeah, kind of silly, but the Mighty Mighty Bosstones are my favorite band, and so...


Speaking of trading, looking at trading off some of my old Confrontation minis for Privateer Press Rhulic Mercenaries (Dwarves mostly, some Ogres).  Feeling especially silly as I traded OFF my Rhulic army for 40K and probably Confrontation stuff years ago.  But I wound up with a LOT of the stuff as people locally left the game and I was the last gamer to move out of a shared house or two…  But starting from nothing again, and having an excellent trade reputation is isn’t too hard I think…  Will have to ping Dave to see if there is interest in some of the more interesting cards I found in random decks from the old “Joe’s Brewery MTG days”…  I had no idea how many more I would find packed away in boxes in the Basement of Doom ™…  But, guessing that I could get a decent restart that way if the Bartertown route fails…  Or if I just decide to get a bigger army (which is FAR more likely)…  Mercs are not really considered an OP army, but I’ve always had fun playing them, and seldom felt totally outclassed hitting the field with the Rhulic lads…  Toward the end of 1st edition Warmachine, yes…  Things got pretty silly there with some outright stupid combos that killed any interest I had in playing the game, and I guess that is why it has taken me SO long to go back…  Well, that and the group we played with evaporated at that time as a LOT of us were just sick of it.  So, I moved back to 40K…  And the wheel turns again J…  Getting out once/week is pretty much the upper limit with real life and the family having priority of course J….

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Journeyman League at the Gopher! Oh, and STAW in a few weeks...

So, made it through the first week of the league...  I played a modified or alternate version of the box set...

Lt Caine
Defender
Ironclad

So far was "Eh" at best...  Such a small force, with huge and glaring weaknesses.  Main one is of course a complete lack of HtH ability.  Anything that can get to me will simply crush poor LT Caine.  No gunfighter on this one, so he is just SOL should pretty much ANYTHING engage him.  So he got crushed by Joe's Gorten and Tim's Skorne monster.  Got lucky and was able to snipe Tom's caster, but I think another turn he would have been in charge range.

Next week we go to 15 points with the above models mandatory...  Since that comes to 10 points, I am pretty much stuck.  Almost all of my "Units" start at 6 points.  I'd not use the Ironclad if I had a choice I think...  So I guess I bring a few Solos like a Gun Mage CPT Adept and Journeyman perhaps?  Maybe the mechanic to repair stuff...

Big STAW event coming up, so getting ready...  Since I will not play Borg, I will I think bring a Federation ship to try to kill the Borg.  The Voyager is the only one at this point I think that can.  This is pretty well maxed out, and it is actually a higher CPT Skill than the 10 of the Borg...

Fed Borg OP3 2

Resource: Flagship Independent (Romulan) (10)

USS Voyager (30)
Jean-Luc Picard (6)
Flagship (0)
Cheat Death (5)
Cheat Death (5)
Adm. James T. Kirk (5)
Montgomery Scott (5)
Hikaru Sulu (3)
Elizabeth Shelby (2)
Tom Paris (4)
Transphasic Torpedoes (10)
Multi-Adaptive Shields (5)
Ship SP: 80

Total Build SP: 90

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html


Every other turn I control the Cube, so I know it will NOT attack me (unless there are no ships in range but my own) and I can use Scott for an offensive punch (+2 Attack sice), and Sulu on the turns I need to defend.  On Defence, I have 8 dice with re-rolls and the free BS... Should net me a decent number of evades.  And then I have the 2 Cheat Death cards to play to buy an extra 3-4 turns.  Scott can repair shields to get the Multi-Adaptive Shields back online.  Only one shot with the Torpedoes, likely for the 12 dice, so I'll have to make that count against the 25 Hull cube that gets stronger as it takes Damage...  Still not sure this is a winnable scenario but this looks like the best chance I have.,  

Friday, September 5, 2014

The Basement of Doom! Need to clear off my painting table...

So, need to get the basement cleaned up…  Too much random crap there, and with the new couches of doom upstairs J…  At some point I need to rearrange my “hobby” desk and perhaps be able to see what all I actually have ON it.  So far I know I have:

  • ·         Imperial Knight to assemble/paint…  I have the lower half assembled, more or less and the base coat of paint in place…  Going to finish it in the colors of House Chappell (Crimson/Gold with the Lions and Roses on the shield)…  So, fairly basic and it should look pretty good with my existing Imperial armies of various types…
  • ·         Wolves…  A LONG time ago I started the stripping/repainting project for them.  Got a ways in and then…  Well, lost interest I guess.  Going with the 30K Legion scheme, so a much darker grey with crimson trim.  Not the silly baby blue with bright yellow/red/white.  Much more “we’re here to kill things and move on” than “we’re in town for Carnivalle and we got bored”…  Terminators and Siege Breachers as well…  Terminators at least are good, but the Siege Breachers are…  Well, not.  Amusing playing them with a Spartan to transport the 20 man squad and attached ICs, but effective?  Not even a little.  Still a LOT of models, and no real motivation to play the game or keep painting them for the moment…
  • ·         Grey Knights…  Almost the same thing.  But as I always played ACTUAL Knights, I really did not lose any options with the new book.  Just not a lot of motivation to finally finish the force.  So, back to the shelves for them.
  • ·         Crimson Fists…  Another one that is “Meh”…  Got a good sized force painted up and ready for Tournament play if need be.  Not bad, but…
  • ·         Eldar…  Eh, I got almost all the way through painting/repainting them before the new book hit.  I was really excited to have them come out of the “penalty box” with their very limited codex and…  Well, it was far more powerful than anything before or since.  Have to admit on my initial reading of the book, the Wave Serpents were the thing that struck me as the long term over powered thing.  They did not magically become fliers like the Necron transport tanks, but I’m pretty good at math and I saw the immediate potential of the “shield” shooting every turn.  6-11 high Str and TL shots/turn makes a lot of things simply disappear.  Without the WS?  Good book, I was happy that most of it meant I could field most of my stuff without feeling like I was just giving away points and fighting with one hand tied behind my back.  Scorpions are “eh”, but at least usable I guess.  The Banshees though did actually get worse.  Shame, I had a full unit of them painted and ready…  In the ancient times they were unholy terrors, but now?  Better to fight short on points than give away the kill points I think.  So, not ALL of the book was OP madness, but…  But caffeine hitting and back on subject… I have a BUNCH of them in various stages of painting on the table, guess they get shelved as well…  Still have too many that I never did get around to assembling or painting over the years like Vipers, etc…
  • ·         Warmachine and Hordes stuff…  So, a game I am actually playing at the moment.  Woo Hoo!  Not many new models for me, but a few…  Stripped and getting ready to repaint my second unit of Gun Mages.  Sword Knights as well…  Just in time for a Journeyman League.  Not thrilled about having to use the “Battle Box” as I think I successfully avoided fielding that caster for all my time as a Pressganger…  We’ll see I guess.  Longer term, I have to dig up my Circle models.  THOSE I have a bunch of and no clue the condition as they are scattered about the Basement of Doom ™…  Despite not playing the game I DID pick up a few of the “neat” models over the years, so have things like a Warpwolf Stalker to paint up…  Giant Werewolf with a big sword?  No kilt, but still…
  • ·         Confrontation “stuff”…  Celts, Wolves and the Paladins of my Lions armies…  Guess they get a shelf or two.  Really no hope that game will ever return at this point.  Shame, I rather liked the skirmish rules at least for v3…  v3.5 was easily broken, but still fun.  V4 was another game altogether and just not very good at all…  Just my opinion (well, mine and all of the people locally playing), but then of course Rackham went under so…  Amazing models though, and happy to have so many on my shelves.
  • ·         STAW/X-Wing…  Planning on repainting at least some of the minis for those games.  Nothing too drastic I think, and since I have only a few X-Wing ones…  But getting a wash/ink on the Star Trek ones will make them look a lot better, at least the base set ones and a lot of the early things.  Looking at the K’Tinga from the new blind buy booster vs. the early D7/K’tinga model and seeing the vast improvement in the models makes me think that in the longer run, they are getting a lot better and might actually stay around for a longer time than expected.  The Romulans and Klingons though I think could do with some paint to make them look more like I think they should, or at least different than everyone else’s J  Old time SFB player myself, so once upon a time saw the much older models on the table for that… 


So, coming up for playing? 

40K tournament is in limbo and I doubt very much I’ll bother with it.  Yes, I could field one of my several (too many) armies and likely have a decent shot at winning…  But, my heart just isn’t in it.  Eldar are just too far out of line with the rest of the armies in terms of power, and locally there were 4-5 of us who played Eldar over the years, so guessing they’ll be the eventual winner here.  Not saying that the local (excellent) Necron/Chaos player could NOT win, his force is pretty darn good as well.  Just that there is so little variety if you actually want to win as opposed to “let’s just get in a game”.  With money on the table, it’s a much more serious game, so the “fun” forces might have fun, but are unlikely to win if even one player shows up with the very efficient and overpowering forces…

STAW event(s)…  Looking at one Wednesday and another one at the end of the Month.  Going up against the Borg.  At least a worthy challenge J…  Not winnable, at least the Wolf 459 one.  Just trying to do damage delaying and dying.  Not entirely sure the OP3 event IS winnable the way we play locally.  We tend much more toward the “Faction Pure” end of things.  The rules for the Borg in the scenario will be a challenge at best.  We’ll see I guess.  Not seeing any good ways to deal with the Borg AND the other player’s fleet.  So, I’ll just ignore the other player and do what I can against the Borg.  Even so, Federation might survive long enough, Dominion and Klingon might do enough damage, but with the cube going up to 10 Defense dice just before dying not sure I CAN do 25 damage quickly and reliably enough.  Will need to be lucky to get the points I guess.  That AND hope that Lon (current League leader) gets unlucky I guess to allow me to grab the prize ship for the Month (USS Stargazer).  Not a hugely powerful ship by any means, actually in the NCL class I’d guess from SFB, but a familiar ship and looks neat.  Unfortunately, until FAQ’d, there is one card that is not limited and probably can be used in stupid combos so will b hard to trade for if not won…


Warmachine…  Mentioned the Journeyman league, so that starts in 2 weeks.  Probably Cygnar again for me as my Circle stuff is scattered in the wilderness…  Think it will be somewhat OP in the longer run though.  Now that I understand the new edition better I think that I can see a lot of the Circle strengths and strategies that a lot of other armies will simply not have an answer for…  But seems a much more “friendly” group overall, I do not want to do what I did last time and enter the league sweeping all of the categories and risk driving away players…  J  Was something of an “oops” for me as I got carried away with building overly powerful forces and winning big against the local crowd.  Toned it down a lot, except for my occasional “making a point” builds to deal with similar situations.  Frankly, those were never really fun games I suspect for either of us, but needed I think.  So, looking like WM/H is going strong locally for the time being…  Maybe it will last long enough for 40K to sort itself out while we take a break from it…  But in any case, it is quite enjoyable in a very "non serious" way to get away from the silliness of IT management...