Game Funk...

Game Funk…    

And not the smelly gamer funk.  Mostly just hitting a wall or darker patch in my gaming.  Plus side, and it is a HUGE one being that I have my X-Wing stuff and that game locally (though ironically not at the Gopher…  We’ll have to change that) is going strong.  Pretty much what is keeping me sane game wise. 

Warmachine is in a Journeyman League now and my chosen army (Rhullic) has so few options in this setting that it simply does not interest me at all.  Yes, my fault for choosing an extremely limited Army like this.  But I wanted a nice small (pun unintended, but I’ll take it) Army to get back into the game and get in some play time.  I felt my Circle had too much potential to stay as broken and silly as I remembered them being.  And I suspect I would have played them hyper aggressively like normal and it would have gone badly for the other newer players facing me as I tend to let myself go and just kill everything in my path…  I have only faced the Circle once since coming back, and it was a much newer player so my Cygnar “shoot early and often” force did well.  I suspect strongly that had a more seasoned player been playing and choosing the army I would have been swept off the table.  Kind of the feeling I get playing that game though, there was a pretty steep learning curve coming from 1^st edition to 2^nd edition, and a lot of what I had in the ancient (for Warmachine’s timeline) times is simply not useful or effective enough against the modern stuff.  So, while I have a HUGE Cygnar force in terms of numbers of figures, not a lot of it would do much on the table I think.  Yes, I can make a LOT of it effective, depending on the matchups, but I think Cygnar is low to middle of the pack in terms of effectiveness.  Decent, but too easy to find hard counters to.  OTOH, it HAS a lot of absolutely hard counters to some of the other forces, so things like my Gun Mages are annoying and potentially amazing especially against things that cannot live without their otherwise strong immunities to things like shooting them with non-magical weapons… 

40K…  Necrons release is…  Well, now I guess.  So far seen pretty much all of the changes, and it does seem to bring them back in line with the current things leaving the Eldar alone as the “oops” Army or “Elephant in the room” as it were WRT the competitive armies.  Wonder how long until they get changed.  Could be a simple FAQ change to the Wave Serpent Shield and I suspect a lot of people will see the Army as being powerful, but not completely unbalanced.  Will that bring me back to playing?  Eh, not any time soon.  Fortunately, my wonderful wife is very good about humoring my tendency to horde so many games/armies and assorted toys, so I will likely HAVE the option to get back to it at some point.

Dug up my FoW stuff…  Lots of lads in various OD Green uniforms…  I painted up my initial US Airborne force in the 1943/44 style, so they are “Mid War”…  I have a Platoon of the old M3 Grants ready to roll out…  And a few M-3 Stuarts to go with my 82^nd force…  One of my Grandfathers was an Armored Cavalry commander during the war, and I know he commanded M-3’s in Africa then later some M-4 Shermans and M-5 Stuarts in Europe, more nostalgia than “effective tanks”.  My Battery of 75mm Pack Howitzers is still pretty nice, though I’ve had them overrun a few times by faster German forces…  My FoW is very much “Airborne” with Mech support….  May flesh it out some to have my 8^th ID/12^th Engineers force which surprisingly changed VERY little from 1944 to 1990 when I was assigned to them.  Changed in the M-3 Halftracks for M-113’s, but…  And we still were issued some of the same damn weapons.  My sidearm was an old M1911A1 manufactured by Colt in 1935, the Squad AT weapon (officially at least, we always “secured” LAWs or AT-4’s) was an ancient 90mm Recoilless Rifle.  The M-3 Grease Gun was still our submachine gun I carried loaded out with tracer rounds to mark for air support…  Oh, and to set bunkers of ammo on fire apparently as “recon by fire” was what we did in Iraq briefly…  Soviet ammo shipped in wooden cases, and tracer rounds…  Well, let’s just say there were a few fires and leave it at that J…  So, FoW is a fun game, but NOT one I think is well suited to Tournaments, and I guess I have not kept up with a lot of the recent releases where the balance issues are apparently quite bad.  works in small, limited groups well enough as a fun game though...

Waiting on D&D and STAW Attack Wings to start back up...  D&D I have a bit more hope in the long term for, and I will be snagging the Silver Dragon with the Paladin rider :-)...  Will look great on a shelf if nothing else...

X-Wing and motorcycles...

So, got in a few more games of X-Wing…  Think I have it mostly figured out and I faced the dreaded Tie Phantoms and the Decimator…  Wow, that thing is TOUGH.  Not agile, but 4 shields and 12 Hull?  Makes the YT-2400 seem like an oversized Fighter…  Which it really is of course.  I LOVE the way it flies especially with Dash at the helm ignoring the obstacles.  Does NOT ignore other ships, so bumping with the large base is a problem.  Especially if the other player is really good like Nick is…  Has the Intel Agent crew card on all of his ships so he can see enemy dials in Range 1-2, so the low Pilot Skill of the generic Pilots is less a problem as he tries to block in your ships and move out of your arcs, etc…  Not a lot I could do, the Phantoms are 4 Dice attacks each, and the Cloaking devices make them really maneuverable.  In every game I think I got them, but never did get through the Decimator itself.  Did a lot of Damage but the thing was too tough for my builds. 

Got my builds a lot more focused:

YT-2400 with Dash and the Heavy Laser…  And ?  Engine Upgrade and Anti Pursuit Lasers are pretty nice…  The Engine Upgrade on a large based ship though?  Um, yes please!  Especially with the ability to ignore the Asteroids…  Need to figure out what Crew, etc…

Liking the Y-Wing, but of course getting it killed in a single turn is possible if they say get the Decimator AND both Phantoms able to catch one at close range…

A-Wing?  FAST.  And the one I was flying was Jake Ferrell.  The Boost or Barrel Roll as a free action after a Focus along with all the Green maneuvers to clear Stress tokens….  And a Green 5 forward?  The ONLY real down side was that 2 Attack really…  Fast, fairly survivable but just did not do enough damage really…

Have not flown an X or E Wing yet…  They both look “OK”, just don’t really fit in a 100 point list with the bigger ship…  Worried about the lowish Damage output on a decent frame not really being enough to keep up.

Z-95 was OK…  Not very survivable and low damage output.  Against Swarms, it will do well, but I am not sure I want to fly it in the Store Championships…

The Winter War event is 50 points, NOT 100 so looking like either a single YT-2400 or maybe a pair of decent fighters.  More likely the YT that my wife got me for Christmas from the Gopher J  Thanks again folks!

Motorcycle, both of the current ones have people interested in them and I found a 1984 Goldwing with the alternator conversion in the price range…  So, maybe the updated bike will be hitting the road soon…  Plus side, easy to transport X-Wing on any of those bikes...

X-Wing, a bit of 40K and basement/motorcycles...

So…  More X-Wing in…  So far so good.  Still losing more than winning of course, but I think I have a much better understanding of what is actually going on.  Swarms are brutal, but vulnerable to Assault Missiles and have VERY real issues flying in and around the Asteroid fields…  So, learning the importance of placing the obstacles and using them to force contact on my own terms.  The YT-2400 with Dash at the helm and its ability to simply ignore them is HUGE…  at least for me learning the game…  I suspect someone who has played the game a long time will not be nearly so impressed with this ability.  But placing a dense field out there then flying in and around it keeps the TIEs at a distance and leaves them vulnerable to being picked apart…  Of course, if they can keep me away from the field and line up on me…  Well, it will be a much shorter game then.

Liking the Rebel Heavy Fighters…  B-Wings are probably my favorites from a “how they work” aspect.  Have to be careful flying them, but good firepower and surprising maneuverability…  Lack the crew/droid slot on their base model, but thanks to the Rebel Aces pack…  That can be fixed for a price.  Some amusing combos allowing 360 degree firing arcs on a fighter that can sideslip into range/arcs, and even with the standard 90 degree arc, it is at the least a fun one to play.  Depends on Shields a LOT, and I can see why the R2-D2 addition would make this insanely over powered.  I HAVE pretty much the rest of the Rebel ships, and while I always liked the Y-Wing myself…  Just having a harder time flying them.  It is pretty much like the Dominion BB in STAW…  Decent attack, but flies like a Battleship.  And the TIEs just run circles around it.  Staying in formation and skirting theirs make it OK, but not something that makes me feel much like I really have a chance against them.  So, they tend to be on my “second line” builds. 

For whatever reason I just don’t find the “swarm” builds all that interesting to fly.  So, while I love the Z-95’s for the fluff (Han’s old fighter in one of the ancient books I read when I was a kid IIRC) reasons and they are fun “filler” elements for my builds I just don’t see myself playing all A-Wings and Z-95’s…  The A-Wings are FAST.  Neat, but very fragile for my tastes.  A Rapier to my preferred Bastard Sword…  Since I feel that the ability to TAKE damage is important, probably more so than moving fast…  Well, I will certainly give them a shot, but they’ll never be my preferred fighter I think.  And the Z-95s are really just cheap.  While the quote attributed to Stalin going along the lines of “Quantity has a quality all its own”...  So, they are good for the points, but certainly NOT great fighters...

The X-Wings I’ve seen used are good…  Nothing OP certainly in general, more “meh” than “OMG”.  Shields and Hull giving you a “5” value for Health…  Not sure if X-Wing players use this sort of valuation like the STAW folks…  But it gives a pretty decent “how hard will it be to kill” level, and given X-Wing’s MUCH lower Attack values across the board it should give a pretty decent estimate how long something is expected to live in the game.  In STAW, I had the ability to one shot a LOT of good Capitol ships (pretty much anything short of a Borg or BB decked out, and even those knew damn good and well that I was there…) which made some aspects of the game FAR more important.  The ability to move across the field and deliver enough Attack Dice to get in that first Alpha Strike was something to be well aware of.  The general lack of terrain there was/is a big issue, especially once the Borg hit the field.  X-Wing has terrain and I have not really seen anything like the silliness of a Borg Cube moving from one DZ to another on Turn one and killing 1-2 enemy ships before they really get to do anything.  But back to the X-Wings themselves…  Good, but really niche I think.  Biggs with his “shoot me first” ability keeps others alive long enough to get off their shots, and a few others have interesting uses…  But not great firepower or maneuverability make it something I am less excited about.  Kind of the “Space Marine” of X-Wing…  The title character, and the basis of the stats for everything else, but seems like its time has passed…  We’ll see if they continue in this role or if some expansion comes out to modify them like the A and B Wings…

About to get back to cleaning the “Basement of Doom™”, and moving my minis around again.   Found a big box of my Fleshtearers and it got me thinking about 40K a bit…  Apparently Necrons are coming out in the short term (next week or two?  Who knows with GW’s continuing lack of anything like announcements…).  We’ll see what if anything they do to change up the silliness of the cheap overly effective flier transports the Crons have now.  And rumor has the stupidity of Gauss getting changed…  We’ll see I guess.  But until those things change it is very hard to see ANY forces being close to the top tier ones.  The BA book was nice enough on my quick read through, but of course the DLC effect of having half of the Formations NOT in the damn $50 book is beyond grating to me.  Yes, I know that is how they make money, but sorry to say it has cost them a fair number of players locally.  Mind, this is almost certainly short term, but my hobby dollars are NOT going to GW anymore, and I am not the only one.  Wizkids, FFG and Privateer Press look like they are getting pretty much 100% of my hobby money.  Of course with the sheer number of GW (and FW) figs I HAVE, not like I’m needing to buy much at all to get back to 40K when the cycle changes again.  But then there is still a group playing locally and I was pretty darn close to a 100% painted Fleshtearers force…  My IG and Wolves were FAR from tabletop quality painting due mostly to the sheer number of minis involved with the IG Light Rifles Company (Praetorians) and the reality that I tended to get bored quickly painting the exact same figure over and over in the late 1800’s British Infantry scheme…  With the Wolves, I stripped a bunch and started to get them base coated and then the 40K malaise hit.  Crept in really…  I was doing the Wolves as a VI Legion force in the original 30K colors and with so many ancient minis, fielding a 30K force was fun for a bit.  Then of course the extremely limit nature of “Crusade Era Marines” hit…  The basic Marine is simply not enough to field on the current battlefield and it was not nearly so much fun playing a game where I knew I had no chance in reality…  Guessing when the basement is cleaner I will get around to more painting, but that looks like it is a while off…

Ingress has taken over my current “gaming” for the most part during the day at least…  Wandering around campus hacking and taking over portals for the “Enlightened” (green team)…  Before I messed up my leg a few weeks back, was getting in a LOT of walking during my days.  Now, well…  Not quite so much.  But made level 8 a while back, and my wife is humoring my desire to wander about a wee bit to play Ingress…  And my youngest at least is getting into the game and wandering about a bit with me.  Spring with taking the dog out to various parks might be interesting to Ingress in other places…

Still gearing up to clean ancient firearms, probably to sell/trade off...  And of course the 2 Motorcycles.to get back to working order and sold...  Kind of annoying as I really like the Silverwing, just doesn't have QUITE enough leg room or top end speed to take onto Interstates.  Not a clue what if anything I will replace them with.  Definitely WANT another motorcycle of course, just honestly nothing too specific is jumping out at me.  Shaft drive, 1000cc engine or larger, forward controls or highway pegs to stretch my legs out a bit...  So, probably a Goldwing or the like...  Saddlebags are a must, the trunk less so.  Like the backpack on the passenger backrest that the Magna has, seems to fit my personality well...  We'll see I guess.  Looking like we're getting a new truck (SUV) to replace the Ford Escape, so much lower priority the motorcycle is... 

X-Wing learning curve...

So, got in several more games of X-Wing this evening at the Gopher…  Played the YT-2400 in all of the games, only one with the “Outrider” title.  Have to say, was less impressed with that.  My opponent was quite good, and was able to fairly easily get to Range one where I could not shoot him with the Heavy Laser.  Next several games I used the same basic ship, but without the Outrider…  Got in a good number of the 4 Dice Attacks in the forward arc, and the 360˚ arc with 2-3 Dice attacks including the important Range 1 bracket…  Have to say that Leebo was “meh” as well.  Saw only one Critical hit in 3 games, and it was not a “Pilot” so he was not able to ignore it.  Ignoring the Obstacles with Dash as Pilot will I think be far better in almost every case.  And higher Skill as well…  The Assault Missiles were REALLY nice as well.  The Z-95 was OK, and pretty useless once it fired its missile, so not 100% sure on that, but it was useful in every case….  Throwing out a LOT of damage and punishing formation flying.  Shame it is a “missile” and so I have very few ships I can use it with.

Torpedoes were quite useful.  Note, I did NOT use them, just caught them when fired J…  So, will be using them.  The Rebel Aces pack has a LOT of really nice stuff in it, and will be flying a few of those ships I think…  Both of the B-Wing aces are good, and flew one myself…  Think both will be used regularly….  I did find it ironic that the A-Wing had three copies of the -2 point “upgrade” for A-Wings in the official “we overpriced the ship” admission…   Getting the Crew slot for B-Wings as well makes for some great combos…  Noticed that the card combos are NOT anywhere near so silly as the potential ones in STAW.  And another major plus, I’m already almost done buying stuff for the X-Wing system.  There are simply not nearly so many releases in this one.  Doubt I will get the Frigate or Transport for the Rebels…  The Transport at least has a decent X-Wing or two in there, but $60 for a few X-Wing cards and a big Transport I will likely not use… 

But on to the learning curve portion...  So far have found the lack of action types on most ships to be a problem.  Finding very few action bars on X-Wing ships...  Example:  Almost every STAW ship has the "Evade" action which can be thought of as the "default" action when moving, just in case you need it later if you do not at that time have a shot, etc...  Not seeing many Rebel ships at least that have that action at all.  Barrel Roll/Sensor Echo is nice, and NOT linked to Cloaked like in STAW, but still makes thing darn maneuverable...

Biggest thing is that the card combos are NOT nearly the OP thing they can become in STAW.  Some powerful things, yes...  But no way to throw out 12+ Attack Dice or have infinite attack cancellation...  

So, sounds like there is a big group playing but unfortunately NOT at the game store I go to…  Might check the other one out, have to say I am really liking the “wing” games.  The Warmachine/Hordes group at the Gopher is large and growing.  So, at least there is one game there.  So, the Warmachine is continuing I guess as well…  Will have to proxy the one Heavy Jack as I never bought another after I went back to the game…  Well, not THAT mech, I have the other Heavies of that faction…  Just can’t see the point of bringing a non-shooting Jack that is just so slow and defenseless…

So, the learning curve for X-Wing is not bad at all I think, looking forward to more games,   :-)  Let's see if more folks don't get out to the Store Championships...

Ah, more X-Wing stuff...

So…  Learning the X-Wing stuff and going through the requisite early losses to learn the system…  Though having said that, it is kind of feeling VERY familiar and like the “Maverick” movie with Mr. Gibson and his proclamation to lose until a set point…  Getting the hang quickly.  Which is good as there are a number of events coming up for this system that I am planning on attending.  NOT planning on winning of course, but certainly planning on playing for the win.  Will see better this weekend what the “local meta” actually is.  Since I will only play the Rebels, my Squadron selection is pretty easy…  Or it would be if I could just make up my mind J…  With my lovely wife’s support on the Christmas present of doom, I have a lot more in the line of choices…

YT-2400

2 X-Wings

2 B-Wings

1-2 Z95s

Y-Wing

E-Wing

My initial inclination is:

YT-2400 (Leebo, Determination, Heavy Laser Cannon, Dash Rendar, Outrider) 49

B-Wing (Ten Numb) 31

Z-95 (Airen Cracken) 19

Leaves me with one point left over for something random or Initiative…  Seem like it would be a decent build for a beginner with a tough to kill ship supported by the 2 Fighters, one of which at least is a decent gunboat, the other really just there for the free action/support

Other than that I have been thinking of running a fairly standard 4 Fighter Squadron of:

B-Wing (Ten Numb) 31

E-Wing (Etahn A’baht, R2-D2) 36

Z-95 (Airen Cracken) 19

Z-95 (Bandit ) 12

Some amusing combos with Ten’s one Crit not being able to be dodged, Etahn’s ability to give ALL other attackers the ability to change a hit to a critical and free action from Airen.  Not throwing a lot of dice down range, but pretty high quality I think…  Other variant with LT Blount and the Assault Missiles for the “it just hits” and causes damage to a swarm.  Not sure, if the swarm of TIEs is a thing locally, then this will definitely be a good one, else…  Situational, and not likely to be something I bother with…

Brings me to a question…  What, if any is the difference between “Missile” and “Torpedo” in this game?  Both seem exactly the same, it really does seem to be just something that FFG is using to control access to certain “missiles” that might cause balance issues if they were more generally available…  But both in this system are things secondary weapons requiring a Target Lock and a Discard of the upgrade to fire, so functionally identical.