Gaming while ill... X-Wing and STAW

So…  Playing Strategy games while ill and on Sudafed is a fail.  Got out to the Gopher to play in their X-Wing day event, decided to try out a ship I’d never flown and…  Well, apparently I chose wisely NOT riding the Silverwing in.  I got hit hard by whatever hit my amazing wife earlier…  Wound up having fun, but playing like crap.  First game I parked my big ship on an asteroid and wound up staying there for 3 turns…  Needless to say, went poorly with my Heavy Laser Cannon  out of action for so long.  The Y-Wings I flew were quite good, but rather like flying the old Vipers up against the new Cylon fighters (Yes, BSG on BBC America last night)…  Possible to do damage, but you are clearly outclassed by everything else out there…  The Aggressor was survivable.  And if I didn’t make stupid mistakes and literally fly off the board in my next two games I would have at least done well…  The Y’s did a fair amount of damage though the Range 1 limit of the Auto Blaster turret meant they have no choice but be VERY aggressive and fly right at whatever they are going after.  With the 3 Maneuvers being Green, I can make some good progress especially with an additional 1 Bank from the Engine Upgrade…  Surprisingly, I only put on of these on an Asteroid, and I got them into Range 1 of things pretty well so they were decently effective…  Not nearly top tier I think.  Neat, and fun but not something to take to a serious event.  I suspect in June when I play in the Titan event that I will be flying my more familiar Firespray if I stick with S&V, or go back to some of the more competitive Rebel builds… 

3 B-Wings make for a pretty decent force…

Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Ship Total: 31
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Ship Total: 31
Ten Numb — B-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
Fire-Control System	2
"Mangler" Cannon	4
Ship Total: 38

Have another STAW event coming up, and unfortunately, the prize ship is a REALLY good Dominion ship…  So, Joe and I will both be gunning for it.  Getting bigger crowds in so will have to bring my “A” game I guess…  Have a LOT of ships fortunately, so fleet building should be interesting…  Federation or Dominion I think.  Played Klingons and Romulans most recently.  Will see if the Fed Fighters come in to the Gopher, else the Dominion it will be.  I think the fighter Squadron, a Keldon and a Galor make for the basis.  Joe tends toward the Battleships (BB).  So, my ships will be more maneuverable but his hit like…  Well, Battleships.  And can take a hit like one as well.  My ships will move well and hit hard, just not quite as hard nor can I survive the big hits as well.  The Fighters though…  Those are the wild card that I think can tip it my way.  We’ll see, Joe know hit fleet well and it will be tough…  And of course there are new players showing up which is great…  In general J…  We’ll see, already have the USS Hood, so the Fed builds might be a thing with stuff no one else local has yet…

Gen Con plans, GI reflections and Motorcycle fun...

So, apparently I was late signing up for the Gen Con X-wing stuff, I thought they were doing Thursday AND Friday qualifiers for a Saturday final, so was going to get in on Friday…  Nope, Thursday qualifiers and with us travelling on Thursday not going to try to get on the wait list.  Signed up for an early morning tournament last year and travelling with the family is…  Well, a LOT different than by myself or with a few other Ex-GI buddies able to realistically get up and on the road at “oh dark”.  But going there with the family is a LOT more fun in so many other ways, so NOT a bad thing in any way…  Just have to recognize the limits beforehand and avoid the stress of trying to travel quickly and keep a schedule with a bunch of people who have NO interest in being ON a schedule J…  So, guessing I’ll be playing STAW…  I suppose my Dwarves could come out and play for Warmachine, but thinking I’d get stomped pretty hard there playing a “thematic” force like Dwarves rather than a “We’re just here to kill shit” force…

Got me thinking a bit…  Guessing a lot of people think I’m a bit strange with the way I interact with others.  I do not in general make friends easily or get too close to  people. Over the years, starting mostly around the time I joined the Army, I wound up losing a lot of my friends.  We did not lose anyone on either of my “combat deployments”, but not long after that we started.  Honestly, given what we did then and after I am more than a little surprised ANY of us survived.  In any case, kind of a defense mechanism I guess, keeping people at a bit of a distance because they were likely to die in a bit anyway, so no real point getting to know them.  Am told it comes across as arrogance at times.  And that was pretty much where I was when I got out, so not a real stretch J…  There was also the whole CID infiltrating our units when I was in Germany that tended to breed a real distrust between the old timers and the new guys.  Was NOT effective finding drugs or whatever they were looking for, but it was VERY effective at destroying unit morale in any unit getting replacements.  When a guy shows up with pressed and starched uniforms, highly polished boots, combat patches and claims to have been an Engineer or Grunt for years…  Without ever getting dirty?  No.  Little things that just stick out to someone who has been doing this for a while…  Was another reason we really did not need to NOT get close to anyone else.  “I’ve got all the friends I need” J…  Might have been something I’d heard working with folks on the other side of the war against crime… 

Oh, and this happened last week:

Glad I was heading home at an odd time, wearing the helmet/leather jacket/gloves and have my reflexes still…  Caught the piece as it broke free in the cross wind.  35 year old Plexiglas and a strong wind…  Well, the Wind won looks like J…  Took the rest of the shield off and looking for a replacement now…  Just does not feel right riding without the big shield to hide behind, so I guess I've gotten soft in my old age J…

Replacement cycles... Computers and games :-)

Replacement cycles…  Doing that at work, swapping out old, obsolete machines for either slightly less obsolete machines or new ones…  Ideally new ones, but budgets being what they are of course…  Fun times.  And something of a never ending cycle…  Guessing I have another 10+ years until retirement, so that is good I guess…  Grad School continues apace, classes are different…  Nothing at all like I remember the “slightly higher pressure” classes in Engineering school here at the University of Illinois.  I do think that this will be done a lot quicker than I expected…

Got me thinking about GW and 40K.  Having seen a game company completely implode when Rackham made their version 3.5 rules and tried to break the system enough that the version 4 would be seen as good and a shift from “skirmish” to “massed battles” I have to wonder if there is not what GW is doing on some level…  Rackham had an excellent line of miniatures, some of the best I’ve ever seen (and some of the worst, I did NOT like every army, but tastes are individual of course) and their game itself was fun…  If somewhat complicated at times.  Then some changes came out that were good, the free magic/faith spells for the folks who could use them and suddenly spell casters actually started seeing some play time…  Well for some armies, my Wolfen were still really focused on the “Big Werewolves rushing at you” theory…  Effective J…  But my Kelts…  Yes, the Druids and such were fun, and not even slightly over powered really…  The changes to “Assault Fire” were broken and stupid for my Wolfen especially.  Seeing the lads able to run 35cm (French game company, so metric units), throwing a spear for a free shot before slamming in with a charge…  Getting to redirect their charge in the event they killed their initial target on the point blank throw…  That was not so good J..  But in any case, the game fizzeled HARD when they changed it to a mass combat system.  Then it just quickly disappeared.  Have had that feeling with 40K for a long time now, and I am thinking it is accelerating.  Please do not take this as a wholly negative thought, I have liked and played the game a LONG time, just seeing it change so very much and make the iconic piece in the game relegated to complete irrelevance is somewhat disheartening. 

The pace with which they are releasing Codices is in and of itself something of a problem.  Yes, there was that wish years ago to see more releases and not have something like the 3^rd Ed Wolf codex STILL in use late into the 5^th Edition of the game.  So, got our wish I guess.  Kind of like my wishes when I was back in High School…  Wanted a Mustang, to travel the world, become an Engineer, etc…  Got everything on that list, just nothing like what I thought I was asking for J…  A whole lot of interesting stories I guess, and I’ve been a lot of places and done a lot of things most people only read about…  And per usual, a lot of it was not good…  But back to the Codices…  Eldar got their SECONG hardback book in 2 years.  At $60/book, keeping up with more than a single army has long since become “difficult”.  Especially with the “DLC” model of “Codex Supplements” for more specific things like Marine Chapters and Eldar Craft Worlds…  Those are now officially obsolete and unusable.  Glad I did not buy them, and it makes me wonder what is in it for the FLGS in this environment…  No clue if there is some sort of return policy for dead product, especially with GW not officially announcing ANYTHING until a week or so out and now with what is looking like a 2 year cycle for the major books…  I know I would be of the opinion that I keep only the bare minimum on my shelves, but then my negotiation skill has always been “poor” at best, frankly I would likely have been rid of GW years ago to keep from getting repeatedly burned by that company… 

With the Eldar release last weekend, looking like Knights this weekend?  The “old” Codex from what a year ago with BOTH Knight Titans in it will more than double to something like 5 possible Knights now?  But of course, not an update, a complete new book invalidating the previously purchased one…  GREAT models, I have one that I hope someday to actually get assembled (the legs are done on mine now)…  But this is getting kind of ridiculous…  Marines are rumored for next Month as well.  So, the cycle has begun again, and frankly I can’t see spending that much every month to keep my WAY too many armies current.  My wife is patient with my toys, but there are limits J…

X-Wing is still coming out with some great stuff and the pace is WAY less…  Even STAW is slowing down, hopefully the group continues to regrow…  X-wing is becoming absolutely huge locally, and it is an extremely well balanced game in my opinion…  J  Hopefully I’ll get back to playing it as real life has gotten a tad busy recently

MI, Earthquakes, weather and gaming...

So, off in MI for a road trip with the family…   Got the new truck in time, so the trip up was quite nice.  Missing the motorcycle trip and the weather up here has been perfect for riding…  Ah well J  At least the weather will be back to rain next week…   Did get to be here for the Earthquake, not something hugely common up here…

 Not a lot of gaming the last week really, getting ready for STAW next Monday (the 11^th) at the Gopher.  Hopefully a larger group of folks will come out and play.  The rules are a bit odd for this one, so I have to build a few different Fleets I think.  And I think we’ll need to get in touch with Dave and see if we can kick in to purchase the prize kits at least to run the events in our own group…  I REALLY want to get the USS Hood ship of course (I REALLY like the Excelsior class ships, but I really do not want to have the Store lose money for this…  Comes to that I can just E-Bay for the ships I really want.  Down side, I play Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Dominion so there are a fair number of the ships I would like to pick up.  BIG rule changes last week (http://wizkidsgames.com/blog/2015/04/30/star-trek-attack-wing-announement/) nerfing the Fighter Squadrons and Borg in general.  GREAT for the game, just hoping it is not too little late for the game as a whole.  Got at least one of the old guard to come back and play, and thrilled.  Joe is a LOT of fun to play against and his Dominion are quite a challenge to face. 

Think I need to snag some of the nice Movement Templates…  Thinking that they are close enough between X-Wing and STAW/D&D AW…  And as the only really “competitive” stuff I am doing is X-Wing these days, should make sure they work for that…  Really looking forward to the K-Wing for the Rebels.  The S&V ships do not look all that interesting to me honestly…  The bombs look like they’ll make my Emon pretty devastating.  The extra Ordinance is useless for that ship in particular, but every other ship?  Maybe…  The K-Wing certainly looks like it will work amazingly well…  Get expensive though.  But it will be a drastic shift of the meta I think.  Makes the game pretty darn interesting to me at least…