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…
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