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...

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.

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…

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…

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 3^rd 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...

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…

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?

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… 

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...

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…  4^th 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…

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...

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...

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.

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?  7^th 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 8^th Edition hitting” or at least “When are the new Tau and Eldar books due?”

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...

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...