Harlequins, FoW and more X-Wing stuff...

So, another codex out for 40k...  Just looked it over and it looks decent...  Harlequins next, and with a lot of their stuff already out in White Dwarf form, not a lot of surprises I think...  Sadly, i have a bunch of the ancient Harlequins from the original RT era ones even still have a full box set unpainted in the original box...  Not really an accomplishment, more a statement on how little I painted over the years I think.  They look good and lacking the "slightly" OP Wave Serpent, should be an interesting army to play. And I miss the ancient times when the Solitaire was the single most feared threat in close combat on the table, even taking down Genestealers on average rolls...

Weirdly, found a few ancient 15mm Tigers in the Basement of Doom...  I remember those being unholy terrors when I started playing Flames of War...  Until my Airborne troopers with their "Everyone has a damn Bazooka" mentality hit, I had no real answer for them...

X-Wing play continues....  Really liking the game so far.  Have to say that I am kind of looking forward to the "Scum and Villainy" expansion.  More Z-95's and Y-Wings I am familiar with...  The other ships, not so much.  Some REALLY good upgrades though.  The Mangler cannon for one.  4 points for a 3 dice attack, switching one hit to a critical.  More importantly for my YT-2400 builds, it is range 1-3 so I can make it a 360 arc and lose the range one blind spot.  The other Scum ships are OK I think as well.  So far seeing a fair amount of variety as far as fleets go.  For Imperial squadrons, the Decimator is really popular.  It is hard to kill quickly, and with the large base and a 360 arc hits pretty hard.  It pairs well with TIE Phantoms and swarms of regular TIEs...  Good, but certainly not unbeatable.  Phantoms with their cloaking tricks are annoying and with a base 4 dice primary attack, I see them as the Klingon B'Rel or Bird of Prey class...  Hit hard and maneuverable, but somewhat fragile.  So, I fight against them the same way playing my Rebels the same way my Federation fleet flies in STAW...  Still having a hard time getting the part that the bulk of the missiles and torpedoes are single shot (discard) upgrades.  That makes less sense to me given the fact most still require a target lock and the discard makes it even more painful.  Have seen and used the card combo of the Advanced Proton Torpedoes, Deadeye and a Recon Specialist to get the two Focus tokens, one to fire the Torpedo and one to convert the up to three blanks that the Torpedo card converts to Focus over to Hits...  So it SHOULD hit for at least three damage, usually 4-5.  But it is a one shot and discard trick.  Good enough to usually kill off a single fighter that you catch at range one...  Oh, that is another thing with the combo, only range one...  But while you can put a hurt on a large ship, not likely to kill it.  SO many things to line up that the combo is just hard to pull off.  I use a B-Wing that allows for Torpedoes to be fired outside of normal arc, but more experienced players know about this, so avoid it pretty easily.  

But Thursday is another X-Wing free play night, have a few things to test before the Armored Gopher's Store Championship on the 28th...  I have it narrowed down to two builds I think that I want to tweak.  The Corran Horn (E-Wing) and Dash Rendar (YT-2400) makes for a pretty powerful duo...  But just two ships, I am concerned about getting overrun by a Swarm...  The other build has just three ships though, and frankly not so sure how that will work.  We'll see I guess :-)...

So, first X-Wing event today...

So, first X-Wing event today...

I was playing:
YT-2400 with Dash, Navigator, Heavy Laser and Engine Upgrade coming to 50 points even...

Have to say that the Navigator was the MVP...  Getting to change the speed up on my chosen maneuver, then ignore the Asteroids and boost or barrel roll out of firing arcs and sometimes even using the Heavy Laser...  Did not actually shoot down all that much, but the speed and agility meant I survived quite well...  And of course, dancing through the asteroids helped keep me alive longer...

So, I have the basis for my Store Championship Squadron...  Thinking this, a B-Wing and...  Either another B-Wing, a Y-Wing, or...  Will have to see, and I have a few weeks to test it.

So, Necrons... Oh, and FoW/X-Wing a bit...

So, Necrons…

               

                Neat overall I think…  My only real gripe is that they actually made Gauss better…  Still Glances on a 6, and now automatically Wounds on a 6 as well.  Not QUITE Rending, but it does seem that the Necrons are really built specifically to take down anything “big” hard and fast.  Rapid firing at say that nice expensive Land Raider from a Squad of basic troops might not erase the Raider, but it has a really good chance of doing 2+ Glances, so it might take 2 rounds of fire or 2 Squads firing at the 250+ point Raider to kill it.  They did kill the silliness of Tesla rolling 6’s to hit on Snap Fire generating the 2 additional hits and they seem like they overall balanced a LOT of the loopholes and stupid tricks that just made playing against a well-built Necron force painful and “less fun” to play against.  Having the cheap spammable flyers go up in point cost a fair chunk (130 from 100 IIRC) is really important, as is limiting the access to them…  Of course, that the Gauss of the basic Troops has gained so very much against the big MC type builds, I am not thinking that is so much of a bad thing for the Necrons…  A lot of the shenanigans with the weird 5^th edition HQ things are apparently gone, and that is a VERY good thing.  Loads of Formations and the like, so guessing there will be new things to break the system, but overall it is looking quite well balanced…  If only they did not so easily kill the nice things I would like to be able to play without feeling like an idiot J…

How well will they balance against the Eldar?  Not a clue really…  I think it would at the very least be a bloody fight from what little I have actually read on this…  The Wave Serpent of the Eldar I think still tilts things slightly in their favor, but the sheer number of Glances that the “deep striking” Troops from their Invasion Beams should make short work of anything that the Necrons can get close to…  So, I think it will come down to the better player fielding the “buckets of dice” approach.  Eldar DO have a huge advantage in mobility I think which will allow them to recover from mistakes and force the issue on the Necrons…

FOW has my 82^nd Airborne lads back to the top of the painting queue…  After this weekend, might even get back to painting again.  Have my Rhulic Dwarves as well…  They are almost base coated and will be finished I think by the next League’s end…  Big mess of bonus points as I have yet to really complete painting ANY of that army.  Close and a lot of it is base coated at least, waiting on details and dipping in the stain J…  NOT actually dipped, but I do use the Minwax to get the really nice effect and it does help provide a nice protective coating…

X-Wing, first actual event coming up Saturday at Winter War, 50 points, team event apparently, so I’ll be flying a YT-2400 with Dash, Navigator, Heavy Laser and Engine Upgrade.  Comes to 50 points exactly, can ignore Asteroids for movement and actions, Navigator allows me to change my speed, and I can then Boost if need be or Barrel Roll…  Both with the Large Ship base make it really maneuverable…  A little light on Damage with the Heavy Laser being locked in front arc, but it DOES have a 360 arc that I can shoot for 3 Dice at range 1…  Then in a few more weeks I have the Store Championships at the Gopher…  Straight 100 points, not 100% sure what I will fly there, but am REALLY liking the YT-2400 , Y-Wing and B-Wing Squadron I have been play testing…  Not a lot of Ships or frankly a huge amount of Damage all at once, but annoyingly survivable…  We will see I guess.  I suspect I will lose badly to the far better builds and players, but it is a fun game…

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...