And still no gaming recently. Work, holidays, and all that fun stuff.
It kind of sucks when you want to get a game in but there isn't a really good regular gaming store with a good crowd. It would be nice to be able to drop in and play warmachine or hordes when I have time and desire.
I'm actually thinking it's time to get a friday night or saturday night gaming night thing going. Some simple games, a few drinks and friends was a good way of enjoying the weekend. But in the busy time of the adult life, just doesn't seem to work to well.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Holiday times = slow gaming = random thoughts
Now that the holidays are in full swing, the gaming bug is once again put on ice due to busy schedules and time spent with the families.. by any means necessary, normally under threats of violence..
I am still looking for Warmachine and hordes games. Definitely my favorite system at the present and I haven't gotten to the point where the games are routine or I've run out of all the idea's I could try.
I think that is why I'm a big fan of games that actually have some extra complex rules to the armies and troops. It does make each thing unique and then you have to figure out where it goes and what it works best with. It's another reason I like the Flames of War system. Each army is very unique. The individual stands and troops, not so much. A rifle team fires 16" no matter what army but the Army rules makes it different.
With 40k.. I just don't feel it anymore. They have all the right elements except for a rule system complex enough to make me like it anymore. Everyone moves 6".. but the Eldar are suppose to be a fast moving race.. well, then fleet of foot.. but then I can't shoot.. Can't be fast and shoot! Huh?? I think 40k would be a lot better with some of those annoying things people complained about. Range modifiers, Cover modifiers, armor modifiers (I find this AP stuff to be annoying as hell honestly.. it's one reason I name my armies as AP3 army or AP5 army instead of Fast assault army, or all aspect army.. Fluff doesn't matter in army building.. only the armor and the AP) Different movement stats. Things to make the races and armies and weapons more unique...
Hell, even Fantasy is more complex and that is a game of mass troops. But the Skaven army has a few pages of rules that make them unique, instead of just being hairy empire troops with weaker AP...
Of course the flip side brings in the more complex rules means more chances for the annoying rule lawyers/benders/power gamers. I'm luck in the fact that I have not meet many of them when playing Warmachine/Hordes. "yea, I agree Vilmon is totally broken but I'm tired of coming in second so I'm going to take him every game". It's that attitude I don't really like to see in games. Overall, nice guy but bad attitude on the game I think.
Enough random thoughts for now. Besides my painting projects over the holiday's, I think I'll update my warmachine and hordes counters. I'm liking the ones I've been using for the Trolls but they haven't been updated in a while. Going to work on them.
Pygmy Tribesman
I am still looking for Warmachine and hordes games. Definitely my favorite system at the present and I haven't gotten to the point where the games are routine or I've run out of all the idea's I could try.
I think that is why I'm a big fan of games that actually have some extra complex rules to the armies and troops. It does make each thing unique and then you have to figure out where it goes and what it works best with. It's another reason I like the Flames of War system. Each army is very unique. The individual stands and troops, not so much. A rifle team fires 16" no matter what army but the Army rules makes it different.
With 40k.. I just don't feel it anymore. They have all the right elements except for a rule system complex enough to make me like it anymore. Everyone moves 6".. but the Eldar are suppose to be a fast moving race.. well, then fleet of foot.. but then I can't shoot.. Can't be fast and shoot! Huh?? I think 40k would be a lot better with some of those annoying things people complained about. Range modifiers, Cover modifiers, armor modifiers (I find this AP stuff to be annoying as hell honestly.. it's one reason I name my armies as AP3 army or AP5 army instead of Fast assault army, or all aspect army.. Fluff doesn't matter in army building.. only the armor and the AP) Different movement stats. Things to make the races and armies and weapons more unique...
Hell, even Fantasy is more complex and that is a game of mass troops. But the Skaven army has a few pages of rules that make them unique, instead of just being hairy empire troops with weaker AP...
Of course the flip side brings in the more complex rules means more chances for the annoying rule lawyers/benders/power gamers. I'm luck in the fact that I have not meet many of them when playing Warmachine/Hordes. "yea, I agree Vilmon is totally broken but I'm tired of coming in second so I'm going to take him every game". It's that attitude I don't really like to see in games. Overall, nice guy but bad attitude on the game I think.
Enough random thoughts for now. Besides my painting projects over the holiday's, I think I'll update my warmachine and hordes counters. I'm liking the ones I've been using for the Trolls but they haven't been updated in a while. Going to work on them.
Pygmy Tribesman
Monday, November 05, 2007
Gen Con challenge resolved!
Since Gen Con, a challenge has been going around.. 1k trollblood vs circle 15 minute turns.. That challenge was settled on Saturday.. recorded in the Book of Grudges.. Congrats to Rob on a well played and hard earned victory!
Well, we did the 1k trollblood vs circle but not the 15 minute turns because it was a long ass game.
In one of the best Hordes games I have played, Rob and I faced off on saturday night. At first, we had a scenario we were going to play but after a little confusion on the scoring we said, hell with it and just went to kill.. This gave rob a little edge since I was spread out to take the scenario and he was just going for the kill.
We both started the game with 1k points.. I think we both ended the game around 150 points left on the table in the final turn. Everything was dying! It was great...
Last turn saw me with Borka, the keg, and a mauled unit of champions. Rob was left with Baldur, Morvahna (hurt), and a mauled woldwarden. Rob had forested walked Baldur to get behind the champions and hit Borka but failed to kill him. On the next turn, Borka only had the 3 fury that was reaved from the dead winter troll... after using all the fury.. Baldur was left with 1 life!! At which point, Baldur finished off Borka.
The game was pretty brutal. Rob took pretty much his full force against the group I set up with Grissel, 1 impaler, 1 axer, 1 DTM, 1 unit of champions, 1 fell caller. That force did a pretty good job of laying down some good hurting before coming down to the superior numbers.
A few highlights
Well, we did the 1k trollblood vs circle but not the 15 minute turns because it was a long ass game.
In one of the best Hordes games I have played, Rob and I faced off on saturday night. At first, we had a scenario we were going to play but after a little confusion on the scoring we said, hell with it and just went to kill.. This gave rob a little edge since I was spread out to take the scenario and he was just going for the kill.
We both started the game with 1k points.. I think we both ended the game around 150 points left on the table in the final turn. Everything was dying! It was great...
Last turn saw me with Borka, the keg, and a mauled unit of champions. Rob was left with Baldur, Morvahna (hurt), and a mauled woldwarden. Rob had forested walked Baldur to get behind the champions and hit Borka but failed to kill him. On the next turn, Borka only had the 3 fury that was reaved from the dead winter troll... after using all the fury.. Baldur was left with 1 life!! At which point, Baldur finished off Borka.
The game was pretty brutal. Rob took pretty much his full force against the group I set up with Grissel, 1 impaler, 1 axer, 1 DTM, 1 unit of champions, 1 fell caller. That force did a pretty good job of laying down some good hurting before coming down to the superior numbers.
A few highlights
- Pureblood Warpwolf 2hand throwing a regular warpwolf with the can't be knocked down spell to get the charge on Borka and that hurt...
- Bog Trogs.. Oh yes.. Bog Trogs.. I could have used them better I think to possible go after the warlocks but I see the potential.
- Pureblood Warpwolf spaming Ravenous... I hate that thing.. Rob loved it.. Miss.. Reroll! HIT!
- FellCaller with liquid courage.. To bad he missed on the charge.. 5 dice for damage on Morvahna... but instead 4 dice and not a good roll but made Rob worry
- Lord of the Feasts actually getting in and hitting something!
- FellCaller on liquid courage can be nasty.. if they don't blow the rolls.
- Winter Troll and Mosh Pit are as useful for the distraction as they are for the abilities
- Rob used a power attack to do some good! Maybe it's a start of a trend.
- Rob needs to learn to use Cav better
- I need to figure out how to get the keg killed at the right time.
Friday, November 02, 2007
The Season of Giving
As we approach yet another goddamn holiday season, it's too easy to let the BAH HUMBUG that lives inside each and every one of us rule. I myself live that way most of the time, but now that I'm old and wise, I believe in giving back to the youngsters, so they can take care of me when I'm old and REALLY crotchety.
To that end, I remind of you a damn fine charity: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/
This charity was formed by the guys at Penny Arcade (my heroes) and does good work - video games and toys for sick and even dying kids at major hospitals across the country (and WORLD now) - including two in our area.
So, while we enjoy the onset of cold that turns our blood to warlust, feel free to give a kid the gift of some bloodthirsty game to take their lives off the fact that they are stuck in a hospital, which, frankly, sucks no matter WHAT age you are.
Amen.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Disorderlies Projectus Updatus
What Rob is up to....
On the assembly table: Rezolution Dravani, Dark Age Skarrd. Haven't really touched either in a few weeks. I'd like to try and apply some paint to my Dark Age Skarrd - they are freaky enough that my poor paint jobs might not look too terrible.
Just bought: Some Halo Actionclix - Hunter pack and one 5-model booster. Liking the look of the figures a lot and the rules seem reasonable - my issue with the core clix rules are well known to most of you. Given what a Halo mark I am, I foresee a good number of further purchases made.
Last game played: Warhammer battle reported earlier in the week.
Gaming in the pipeline: Another big (bigger, even) Warhammer battle set for the weekend after Thanksgiving. Want some 40k gaming, still looking for scalps. (John is a wuss and would rather WORK than have his ass beaten again). I have a standing 1000 points Hordes Challenge with Conte.
Wavering support for: The Stampede tourney on October 20th. Was feeling it, but currently the Mercuriality (TM) is leaning me in other directions
On the assembly table: Rezolution Dravani, Dark Age Skarrd. Haven't really touched either in a few weeks. I'd like to try and apply some paint to my Dark Age Skarrd - they are freaky enough that my poor paint jobs might not look too terrible.
Just bought: Some Halo Actionclix - Hunter pack and one 5-model booster. Liking the look of the figures a lot and the rules seem reasonable - my issue with the core clix rules are well known to most of you. Given what a Halo mark I am, I foresee a good number of further purchases made.
Last game played: Warhammer battle reported earlier in the week.
Gaming in the pipeline: Another big (bigger, even) Warhammer battle set for the weekend after Thanksgiving. Want some 40k gaming, still looking for scalps. (John is a wuss and would rather WORK than have his ass beaten again). I have a standing 1000 points Hordes Challenge with Conte.
Wavering support for: The Stampede tourney on October 20th. Was feeling it, but currently the Mercuriality (TM) is leaning me in other directions
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Tacticus
Just a short note of jealousy.
I've been reading the site: http://belloflostsouls.blogspot.com/
They offer a lot of good 40k tactical advice, in addition to news and such. Go ahead and take a look; I won't be offended. Just come back here and finish reading this after perusing their site.
Done? Good.
Man, I'm jealous of the tactical articles.
It's not really that easy to write a good tactical article. Far too many times I've read stuff like "make sure you use your Assault Marines in hand-to-hand, or you're not getting much value out of them." REALLY, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS? WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE? Writing tactics articles for players who actually have a good amount of tactical acumen is certainly more difficult than for 12-year-old dice monkeys who play lists they heard about on the net that "pwn @ll"
So I'm impressed when I read an article that makes me think "Huh. That's a pretty different approach." Or, in the case of a few on Bell of Lost Souls, "Shit, I never would have seen that coming, but forewarned is forearmed..."
I do note that I have a number of new ideas for my Witchhunters thanks to the site. I'll let the reader go figure out what I've stolen from them.
On the other side of the spectrum we have sites like the Privateer Press forums that alternates between really good tactical tips and ones so mind-bendingly bad that the poster deserves to have their junk put into a blender on puree. On film. Then give them a copy of that film for posterity's sake.
(No, I don't feel that's too extreme - sometimes one needs to make a statement.
Our oh-so-many-readers are welcome to post sites that they think do a good job with tactics articles. I'll peruse and any that are deemed stupid will get summarily mocked.
I've been reading the site: http://belloflostsouls.blogspot.com/
They offer a lot of good 40k tactical advice, in addition to news and such. Go ahead and take a look; I won't be offended. Just come back here and finish reading this after perusing their site.
Done? Good.
Man, I'm jealous of the tactical articles.
It's not really that easy to write a good tactical article. Far too many times I've read stuff like "make sure you use your Assault Marines in hand-to-hand, or you're not getting much value out of them." REALLY, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS? WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE? Writing tactics articles for players who actually have a good amount of tactical acumen is certainly more difficult than for 12-year-old dice monkeys who play lists they heard about on the net that "pwn @ll"
So I'm impressed when I read an article that makes me think "Huh. That's a pretty different approach." Or, in the case of a few on Bell of Lost Souls, "Shit, I never would have seen that coming, but forewarned is forearmed..."
I do note that I have a number of new ideas for my Witchhunters thanks to the site. I'll let the reader go figure out what I've stolen from them.
On the other side of the spectrum we have sites like the Privateer Press forums that alternates between really good tactical tips and ones so mind-bendingly bad that the poster deserves to have their junk put into a blender on puree. On film. Then give them a copy of that film for posterity's sake.
(No, I don't feel that's too extreme - sometimes one needs to make a statement.
Our oh-so-many-readers are welcome to post sites that they think do a good job with tactics articles. I'll peruse and any that are deemed stupid will get summarily mocked.
We all Fall down
Post-Gen Con gaming has been pretty much non-existent at the Gaming Mecca. Reasons for this are myriad but mostly I'd say it's been other things taking priority, like the drywall replacement and painting of my kitchen and family room, etc.
Ah, mundane life.
Anyway I believe the cooling of the air tends to coincide with the upping of gaming time. Once things settle down from the current madness, Thursday night gaming will resume, and weekend gaming will likewise ramp back up to twice a month.
I hope, that is.
What will be on the plate? Well, Warmachine/Hordes still hold my attention. The Apocalypse release for 40k is certainly stoking some fire. Rezolution and Dark Age both hold some mindspace. Even Warhammer is making an appearance, as it tends to do a handful of times during the year.
Ah, mundane life.
Anyway I believe the cooling of the air tends to coincide with the upping of gaming time. Once things settle down from the current madness, Thursday night gaming will resume, and weekend gaming will likewise ramp back up to twice a month.
I hope, that is.
What will be on the plate? Well, Warmachine/Hordes still hold my attention. The Apocalypse release for 40k is certainly stoking some fire. Rezolution and Dark Age both hold some mindspace. Even Warhammer is making an appearance, as it tends to do a handful of times during the year.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Hordes Stampede! Oct 20th
http://www.privateerpress.com/HORDES/default.php?x=stampede
Grab your shirts guys, time to represent. If we want a sure fire way of winning, I think Ren games will actually have the kit and a low turn out.
Grab your shirts guys, time to represent. If we want a sure fire way of winning, I think Ren games will actually have the kit and a low turn out.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Warmachine Challenge
The challenge...
1k of Trollbloods (Me, the one and only)
VS
1k of Circle (Rob, I love lamp)
10 minute turns.
No Proxies.
Caster Kill
Here is what I'm thinking of taking:
Borka Kegslayer w/ Pyg Keg Carrier
Grim Angus
Earthborn Dire Troll
Dire Troll Blitzer
Troll Axer
Troll Impaler
Troll Impaler
Fell Caller
Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes (6)
Trollkin Champions
Kriel Warriors
Atlen Ashley
Bog Trog Ambushers
Swamp Gobbers
Now, the problems.. easy. It's a lot for 10 minute turns. BUT, it's not a lot of special tricks so it can go pretty quick with a lot of stuff.
It will slow down when I pop Borka's feat and start slamming everything but that is where I see the slow down. I need to re-read Borka's feat and spells to see if it's Troll models or Warrior models. If it's just models I might switch up a little but right now I think it's a good mix.
I have the Bog Trog and Grim for some nice board control. I might switch something up with scatter gunners since I might be able to force them to bunch up nicely.
And I think I have a good mix of shooting and melee to help balance out getting caught it a mix of feats. I could run into a problem of fury later on but I don't think it will be much of a problem honestly.
1k of Trollbloods (Me, the one and only)
VS
1k of Circle (Rob, I love lamp)
10 minute turns.
No Proxies.
Caster Kill
Here is what I'm thinking of taking:
Borka Kegslayer w/ Pyg Keg Carrier
Grim Angus
Earthborn Dire Troll
Dire Troll Blitzer
Troll Axer
Troll Impaler
Troll Impaler
Fell Caller
Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes (6)
Trollkin Champions
Kriel Warriors
Atlen Ashley
Bog Trog Ambushers
Swamp Gobbers
Now, the problems.. easy. It's a lot for 10 minute turns. BUT, it's not a lot of special tricks so it can go pretty quick with a lot of stuff.
It will slow down when I pop Borka's feat and start slamming everything but that is where I see the slow down. I need to re-read Borka's feat and spells to see if it's Troll models or Warrior models. If it's just models I might switch up a little but right now I think it's a good mix.
I have the Bog Trog and Grim for some nice board control. I might switch something up with scatter gunners since I might be able to force them to bunch up nicely.
And I think I have a good mix of shooting and melee to help balance out getting caught it a mix of feats. I could run into a problem of fury later on but I don't think it will be much of a problem honestly.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Store loyalty
So Renaissance Games, a shop that is local to me for the time being, is trying to stimulate the warmachine/hordes player base and they are starting by moving the "assigned" day to tuesday nights. That can work out for me so I'll be dropping by tomorrow (tue Sept 11th) with probably my Trollbloods in tow to find an opponent.
I have tried to go to the store several times on the previous "assigned" day of Sunday but never saw a game of warmachine/hordes and didn't have any luck finding opponents.
This has me wondering why some stores can develop a large group and others can't. I'm sure there are hundreds of factors like location, etc etc but how much blame can be put on the player base. Is it the responsibility of the players to help the store keep the gaming going or is it the stores responsibility to give the players a reason to come in?
I think it falls more on the store than the players. A store that can some how make people want to go there on a saturday and hang-out in the store instead of their basement helps to inspire a sense of "store loyalty". I do not have any "store loyalty" right now I have to say. A few of the disorderlies are loyal to Dream Wizards for various reasons but I'm too far away from them to really develop it.
For me, when I had "store loyalty" it was to The Arena. And the reasons were 1) always had people in it when I went 2) good owner, good to talk to 3) A good "core" of player so you could run events with. This made me like going there even when it was just to sit and chit chat. And that made me want to spend my money there and to help run events and to promote the store.
Right now, when my impulse shopping kicks in, I'll go grab the figure from the closest store. I don't go to my "favorite" and order it if it's out of stock. If I can't find it, I just order it online.
Oh, and I'll be wearing my disorderlies shirt tomorrow.. Time to represent! I just hope somebody shows up...
I have tried to go to the store several times on the previous "assigned" day of Sunday but never saw a game of warmachine/hordes and didn't have any luck finding opponents.
This has me wondering why some stores can develop a large group and others can't. I'm sure there are hundreds of factors like location, etc etc but how much blame can be put on the player base. Is it the responsibility of the players to help the store keep the gaming going or is it the stores responsibility to give the players a reason to come in?
I think it falls more on the store than the players. A store that can some how make people want to go there on a saturday and hang-out in the store instead of their basement helps to inspire a sense of "store loyalty". I do not have any "store loyalty" right now I have to say. A few of the disorderlies are loyal to Dream Wizards for various reasons but I'm too far away from them to really develop it.
For me, when I had "store loyalty" it was to The Arena. And the reasons were 1) always had people in it when I went 2) good owner, good to talk to 3) A good "core" of player so you could run events with. This made me like going there even when it was just to sit and chit chat. And that made me want to spend my money there and to help run events and to promote the store.
Right now, when my impulse shopping kicks in, I'll go grab the figure from the closest store. I don't go to my "favorite" and order it if it's out of stock. If I can't find it, I just order it online.
Oh, and I'll be wearing my disorderlies shirt tomorrow.. Time to represent! I just hope somebody shows up...
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Jumping on the bandwagon
Alright, Everyone else has. So will I... Don't worry.. won't be as long since I'm not going to cover stuff already done by others.
Wednesday : I'm up and on the road WAY early. Rob with his moaning about 5:00am has nothing on me. By the time Rob is up, I've already had coffee and was sitting in the drive waiting...
Getting the WoW CCG stuff was cool, especially with Rob giving me his warlock deck. He's such a nice guy.
Thursday:
The FoW set up wasn't bad. One big game, of Germans+Italians vs Brit's. It was set-up for about 20 players but I think it only got up to maybe 14 or so. It was on a pretty plain desert board so overall wasn't interesting to look at.
The smaller board for teaching new players was not really a good demo set-up. German Tank company vs Soviet Tank company. But the guys teaching weren't very good. I think I know the rules at a basic enough level to start throwing down the Soviets.
So I got the Horde:Evo book and started reading. By the time the evening games rolled around I had finished most of the fluff.
I had a good time with the 750 game. It was 4 army lists, random list each game but can't repeat until the 5th game which you pick. It was very disorganized like everything else that day it seems.
#1 Epic Lich vs Doomshaper
Best game because it was a good game and fun. Amazingly, Skillt (PPforums), was having a hard time cracking the 3 DT's Shell that I had around Doomshaper. But after messing up and leaving one opening on the last turn, he was able to pop the lich's feat and (though I learned he made a mistake), the rez'ed guys got the drop on Doomshaper and it was over.
Key points of the game :
Slow, drawn out game. Game wasn't bad, but slow. The way he set up and the terrain on the board meant I didn't have any charge lanes, except the ones that fell callers gave the champions. But between that and Baulders feat, it meant my melee heavy army only got into melee on the very last turn.. so... The way the game ended I would have won on VP's but it seemed a little cheap so I just said we would take a draw.
Key points of the game:
This seemed more like playing a brand new player instead of one that had played a few years as he said. Older guy so I settled back for just a very friendly game. Even helping point out some things he can do with the cryx he didn't seem to know.
Overall the Trolls got in fast and just started to steamroll his stuff. He had two bloat thralls which I was having fun slamming around then exploding in his ranks. He did not play aggressive at all so it was one sided.
Key points of the game:
Went back to the hotel, dropped off my stuff and hit the Ram. Give them credit. They have some cute waitresses there.
Friday and Saturday highlights:
I went to some painting classes over these two days. One was a NMM class that was pretty good about understanding light sources on shapes but not very good on how it translates to figures. I got some tips that I will be trying out soon, but when he said he might spend 15 hours or so on the dwarf plate armor on this one figure.. I'm thinking.. Yea.. Not going to happen. But I'll give it a shot since it can look good.
The class with the hot chick in low cut was worth the early wake up. (I heard a rumor someone had tried kicking me to get me up but it didn't seem to work). I found some of the basic tips she talked about to be more applicable to the type of painting I mostly do (the getting it on the table sort of painting).
The last class was an "advanced" painting one. And it was from that class that I figured out... you know, I'm equal to all these guys when I actually sit down and do it. I might not have the speed but I got the skill. So overall, I didn't come away with anything really "new" from the painting classes.
And that was about the summary of my Con exp. Bought stuff but not nearly as much as I thought. Still in the mood to game and paint. And Shoggoth on the Roof is a nice little soundtrack.
Wednesday : I'm up and on the road WAY early. Rob with his moaning about 5:00am has nothing on me. By the time Rob is up, I've already had coffee and was sitting in the drive waiting...
Getting the WoW CCG stuff was cool, especially with Rob giving me his warlock deck. He's such a nice guy.
Thursday:
The FoW set up wasn't bad. One big game, of Germans+Italians vs Brit's. It was set-up for about 20 players but I think it only got up to maybe 14 or so. It was on a pretty plain desert board so overall wasn't interesting to look at.
The smaller board for teaching new players was not really a good demo set-up. German Tank company vs Soviet Tank company. But the guys teaching weren't very good. I think I know the rules at a basic enough level to start throwing down the Soviets.
So I got the Horde:Evo book and started reading. By the time the evening games rolled around I had finished most of the fluff.
I had a good time with the 750 game. It was 4 army lists, random list each game but can't repeat until the 5th game which you pick. It was very disorganized like everything else that day it seems.
#1 Epic Lich vs Doomshaper
Best game because it was a good game and fun. Amazingly, Skillt (PPforums), was having a hard time cracking the 3 DT's Shell that I had around Doomshaper. But after messing up and leaving one opening on the last turn, he was able to pop the lich's feat and (though I learned he made a mistake), the rez'ed guys got the drop on Doomshaper and it was over.
Key points of the game :
- Killing unit leaders is becoming my new hobby.
- Reanimating a Trollkin Champion and having it kill most of his unit is just wrong!!
- Champions concert ability doesn't apply just to the same target...
Slow, drawn out game. Game wasn't bad, but slow. The way he set up and the terrain on the board meant I didn't have any charge lanes, except the ones that fell callers gave the champions. But between that and Baulders feat, it meant my melee heavy army only got into melee on the very last turn.. so... The way the game ended I would have won on VP's but it seemed a little cheap so I just said we would take a draw.
Key points of the game:
- Madrakes Axe with Impalers animus is Awesome
- Baulder and the big wardens.. not a great mix I think
- One more turn and the Trolls would have crushed them into stone.
This seemed more like playing a brand new player instead of one that had played a few years as he said. Older guy so I settled back for just a very friendly game. Even helping point out some things he can do with the cryx he didn't seem to know.
Overall the Trolls got in fast and just started to steamroll his stuff. He had two bloat thralls which I was having fun slamming around then exploding in his ranks. He did not play aggressive at all so it was one sided.
Key points of the game:
- Bloat thralls exploding and killing your opponents guys are just funny.
- Iron Lich with a lot of small bases equals big target.
Went back to the hotel, dropped off my stuff and hit the Ram. Give them credit. They have some cute waitresses there.
Friday and Saturday highlights:
I went to some painting classes over these two days. One was a NMM class that was pretty good about understanding light sources on shapes but not very good on how it translates to figures. I got some tips that I will be trying out soon, but when he said he might spend 15 hours or so on the dwarf plate armor on this one figure.. I'm thinking.. Yea.. Not going to happen. But I'll give it a shot since it can look good.
The class with the hot chick in low cut was worth the early wake up. (I heard a rumor someone had tried kicking me to get me up but it didn't seem to work). I found some of the basic tips she talked about to be more applicable to the type of painting I mostly do (the getting it on the table sort of painting).
The last class was an "advanced" painting one. And it was from that class that I figured out... you know, I'm equal to all these guys when I actually sit down and do it. I might not have the speed but I got the skill. So overall, I didn't come away with anything really "new" from the painting classes.
And that was about the summary of my Con exp. Bought stuff but not nearly as much as I thought. Still in the mood to game and paint. And Shoggoth on the Roof is a nice little soundtrack.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
We survived Gen Con
Here are my recaps:
WEDNESDAY: Got up at the ungodly 5:00 AM - only a half hour earlier than usual, but that half-hour is painful! Particularly when the night before I was anxious, packing everything for the trip and facing a rebellion among the typically well-behaved items in my home like the laundry room tub which decided to clog and overflow on Tuesday night. All of which conspired to keep me awake until practically midnight. So,fun...
Mr. Conte arrived at 5:15 and helped toss all of my stuff into his car. Three miniature cases, one backpack, one duffel bag of clothes, laptop, printer, cooler chest full of water....set to go.
And so by 5:45 we were on the road to Gen Con.
The trip there was very uneventful. The ride was 9 hours that passed pretty quickly; we didn't face any of the traffic snarls of previous years. We were amused that we stopped and had lunch at the same Arbys that we had hit either 2-3 years previous. There were several times that I said "This looks familiar" until we both realized it. We actually spent little time wasted - slam food, refill gas tank, hit the
bathrooms, back on the road. It was even sweeter to learn that we were way in the lead for Team Disorderlies on the road - Tim's car was about an hour behind, and Aaron and company, three hours.
We arrived at the hotel a bit after 3:00. The Embassy Suites were a strange place - very weird getting in and getting out, and that caused us (well, certainly me) some confusion. It WAS accessible through the Indy skywalk, but the trip was twice as long as just walking the damn streets. Going into the wrong door also meant a windy inside trip to the elevators. And biggest pain in the ass of all, despite being only
on the 7th floor - 3 up from the "ground" level - we could only go up by elevator. Which were damn slow all weekend. Plus they wouldn't let us take a cart of our stuff up ourselves; rather aggravating to be FORCED to use staff help.
The room itself was also a bit of a let-down because we expected a suite with two bedrooms and one common room - and got only a single bedroom and common room. And one bathroom. With 6 guys, it was a little cramped, moreso as each of us carried in more and more purchases...
After Brian and I checked in, we hit the hall, getting our swag bags, running into Tim and Samx, and generally scoping the place out. There were a lot of people in the ticket lines for events and generally the energy was pretty charged in excitement. We tried to get a locker but all the ones we could access were full, and the rest out of reach - most the convention center wasn't open to the public yet, so we decided we'd need to take care of it in the morning.
We went back to the hotel to digest the goodies in the swag bag (World of Warcraft CCG starter! Axis and Allies minis booster pack! WHAT, NO DICE???) and wait on Aaron. After they arrived, we went over to Buca di Beppo for a fine, fine Italian meal with 14 of us there - several of Aaron's air force friends, some of Steve Hilley's friends, etc. I knew maybe half the folks, but most of them by the end of the weekend I could actually remember their name. Or just their face. Still, it was fun,filling, and despite being at the Pope Table (complete with SPINNING POPE in the center) there were some pretty debauched stories being told, and more profanity than a Chris Rock concert.
Post-dinner we went down to the Ram to snag a table for gaming. In the back room of the Ram they have set aside tables specifically for playing games and drinking. So we did. Descent and Infernal Machine were both trundled out. I played Descent for a bit; I think there were several rounds of Infernal Machine played and finished. After about an hour of playing, I decided I was beat and begged off to head back to the room. I conked out shortly thereafter in prep for....
THURSDAY: Got an early rise to get in the shower and get prepped for the day ahead. Our hotel had a large breakfast buffet where nothing was all that tasty but it was at least quite filling. We all gobbled our food while eying the clock like conspirators. The big target was the 10:00 AM dealer hall opening, whereupon it was GO TIME to snag such coveted items as Rezolution: Outbreak, Hordes: Evolution, Tannhauser, the Starcraft board game, etc. We were all in for a bit of shock to learn that the hall opening was delayed until 11:00 instead of 10:00 due
to some sort of "opening ceremonies" silliness. We grumbled with the masses of people - none of us care about these "ceremonies!" We care about the dispensation of monies! OUR monies! Nevertheless we weathered the extra hour and eventually were granted access to The Hall.
The Dealer's Hall never ceases to amaze me. Even when I worked at Gen Cons and got early access - when people were still erecting their booths - it's still an overwhelming assault on the senses. Add in several thousand - maybe 10 thousand even - people into that, and it's roiling chaos that can't really be understood, only witnessed and endured. And endured we did. As soon as we were able to press through the swarm forcing their way inside, we split off on our various missions to
acquire our desired loots. Aaron to the Fantasy Flight booth in search of Starcraft and Tannhauser. Tim to the Privateer Press, as his Nationals ticket allowed him access to the express line. I went to the Aberrant Games booth to pick up six copies of Outbreak for various group members present and not. Product grabbed, credit cards swiped, smiles acquired - the process worked well except that Starcraft wouldn't be on sale until 2:00 PM. Blast! I got into a long, slow line at the Rackham booth for the LE AT-43 and Confrontation figures, as well as army books for UNA and Red Blok. Damned Conte pilled his books onto me when it turned out that the line was crawling because the hot Rackham chick who was taking money had to connect all the way to France for their credit card processing, and it was s-l-o-w. At least she was, in fact, very easy on the eyes.
Laden with booty, we wandered the halls until we could take no more. Then we wandered off to find Tim in Nationals- which turned out to be a cluster-fuck of disorganization - and various peoples to various games. Rob F, Alex, Aaron and Sean went to take part in a 4-way AT-43 game against...well, each other. The AT-43 and Confrontation events were pretty much fucked all weekend by several reports. Conte and I went to grab lunch and then prep for our Hordes games that night, which we had
heard might be rather delayed thanks to the fuck-up with Nationals. GREAT!
It turned out that our Hordes Games weren't terribly delayed, only partially. However things really weren't clicking. I played two rounds - both against Cygnar - and after two losses got a bye - my opponent apparently had left just before they announced pairings. So I had the option to either sit and wait for what could have been two hours or find something else to do. I ended up killing time for about a half hour before wandering off - first to see some Rezolution games, including
Marc schooling THE GAME'S DESIGNER - and then finally back to the room, where Aaron, Sean and I chatted for a while before I crashed.
FRIDAY - Woke up at 9:00. I was surprised to sleep so late. Half of the other occupants of the room had long gone - Conte and Aaron both had 8:00 AM painting classes. I think the only ones left were Sean, Alex and I - Alex had purportedly closed down a bar at 4:00 AM and Sean and I just slept like logs.
I had a shockingly painful revelation about how much I LOVE the convention center cement floors as my feet both screamed with every step. Advil swallowed, shower taken, and eventually Sean and I wandered over to Einstein Bagels for sweet sweet coffee (the brown nectar of life) and some breakfast - we'd overslept the hotel's buffet. Sean had some RPG games to run, and I was scheduled for a 12:00 500 point Dark Age tourney.
After some brief hall wandering, I settled into the hall for the Dark Age tourney - across from where Aaron was playing Infinity - and watched a few games while waiting for mine to start. There were 8 total players - and half of them were Forsaken, all Saint Mark. Fan-tas-tic.
My three games:
1. Against Dragyri - I very nearly won this game. My mission was to grab one of his models and race it back to my deployment zone whereupon it would be made into dinner for the starving Skarrd masses. Alas despite capturing several of them (illegally - re-reading the card I learned I couldn't have more than one captured at a time) he eventually beat my forces down to a pulp and won.
2. Against St. Mark - What's that? Almost all shooting against my force with only a single ranged attack? SA-WEET-TAH. I got my assed kicked and it hurt. I really don't know how I could have pulled this game out, there were only 6 pieces of terrain of value and a handful of smaller pieces.
3. Against St. Mark again - oh, the horror. Different player, same result.
I was 0-3 for the tourney. The judge, impressed with my ability to withstand oppression, gave me BEST SPORTSMAN and a $5 gift cert...which I never used. Oops.
After the tourney we wandered the halls a bit more then prepped for dinner. Dinner was courtesy Blue Devil Games at the Alcatraz Brewery. Aaron and Sean were playing in a special RPG game for Charity; Rob F, Conte, Steve Hiley, Alex and I were all there as...onlookers. There were five more onlookers as well. We were all wined and dined - well, sort of, I'll get to that in a moment - courtesy on of the owners of Blue Devil, reported to be a lawyer. Sadly the wining and dining were troubled by
the facts that:
1. We were in a private room upstairs (which was HOT!) far from the kitchen
2. The place was packed
3. The servers were overwhelmed by having us AND a wedding rehearsal dinner there, as well as a few other large groups
So there was some grumbling on that front. I had several glasses of water and a burger about 10:00 PM. I think we ordered at 8:30. Ah well.
I will have to note that watching an RPG: just about as boring as you would expect. I can't even sit and pay attention to a miniatures game for over an hour; this ended up being more than four hours. There were two sole redeeming factors: a very attractive young woman in a corset, and a particularly amusing system of charity funding - whenever the players or the onlookers wanted to impact the game - be in a die roll or random event or whatever - money would get tossed into a big bowl and
the GM notified of "the new way it's gonna be". This turned into a bidding war at times when people tossed in $20s and others followed with $20 more to nullify the first demand...etc etc. All told there was over $1000 in that pot raised for charity. I regret that I never tossed money in - I was really holding out for a nasty point near the climax, but the GM dropped the "to be continued...." line and closed out the session.
Oh well.
After that, more wandering the convention area to check out the pick-up games, then, off to bed.
SATURDAY: Woke up about 8:00. Hit Starbucks for the morning cuppa, and met Tim's wife Samx to get back my Zap-A-Gap glue which Conte was nice enough to leave in Tim's bag. (I needed to glue together a few Dark Age figures that hadn't taken well to Friday's abuse) Meandered over to the convention center, wandered the dealer hall for a bit - Master Chief from Halo was at the Wizkids booth taking pictures with anyone interested - and there was a long line of interested. I shook my head and wandered over to the Wizards of the Coast booth. It was in the back right corner - waaaaaay off from the entrances - and packed.
Apparently they had announced D&D 4th Edition on Thursday but I discovered it from an email from Paul. It's a sad day when there is so much information overload that a man ON SITE is getting his news from back home. Anyway, they were sharing tidbits with folks and given that D&D is the mother-of-all-RPGs (plus offspring like d20 and OGL and whatnot) people were very interested in hearing whatever they could.
As a result of the packed mass, I learned just about nothing. And didn't learn about the D&D Miniatures games massive changes at all until I got home. Go me.
So having learned pretty much nothing there, I retreated to the room to prep for the Dark Age tourney that started at noon. I watched a little bit of Aaron's Infinity games while I was there, and chatted with Tim (post-painting classes) and Conte (desperately trying to avoid stalking the dealer hall for opportunistic attacks) as I re-glued a few figures. Pr0fane - one of the Dark Age staff (actual name: Dean) snapped a couple of pictures of the Dark Age tables while I was gluing, and it
looks like I'm Billy No-Mates.
Go me.
Anyway, the Dark Age Tourney:
750 points. Xtreme Rules - basically, you have three missions, and you have to pick one per game - can't repeat them. I played my Skarrd again, like on Friday, but the extra 250 points really allowed me a lot more room for beatsticks in the form of Raze, two Harpies and a Chitin.
1st Game - Played against a St. Mark Forsaken Force. Don't you Forsaken players have ANYTHING but guns? It was actually a brutal battle - I prevented him from scoring his objective, I achieved mine but he gunned down the troops who did it (Buzzblades, which aren't hard to kill at all) and thus it was just about Last Man Standing. In the end he had only St Mark with a single wound left, and I had my Abomination
with 3 (of 5) wounds left. Tallied up the points and I won...by 4 points. My opponent and I were both speechless. But I'll take the W, my first of the weekend.
2nd Game - Played against a Skarrd force. Actually this was a pretty interesting match-up, as his force was nothing like mine. He had: A Hoodoo, Saber, 3 Bolas, Sister of Charity, 4 of Charity's Might,Grafter... a few other things. Basically a non-Toxin Cult list. I don't know if it was the list match-up or just different play styles, but I really, really, rocked his world. I had the majority of my army
intact and wiped him out.
So I was up 2 Wins and no losses....and only one other player in the tourney with the same record. Since the tourney was running long and about to smack into another scheduled event, they decided to make match three just the two of us for all the marbles.
It turned out to be the same player I'd played on Friday in my 2nd game.
3rd Game - St. Mark Forsaken Force, with ALL GUNS. That's right. ONE model in this force didn't have a gun, and it was the @#$%#@ Field Medic, who keeps me from scoring points by saving people that I get lucky enough to kill. On the table we were playing on, with only 6 pieces of terrain, this was an ugly, ugly fight, and I spent most of the game plucking models off the table. I managed to deal him a few
causalities, but no where near enough to complete my mission or win the game.
So, 2nd place finish in the 750 Dark Age tourney. And for my prize....absolutely nothing. Oh well.
After the tourney and discussing my new Tannhauser acquisition with one of the Dark Age guys (BJ, no idea his actual name) we left to go wander the dealer's hall further, and come up with some food plans. The Saturday night dinner plan had shifted around steadily - there was talk of going to Ruth Chris's, which I had bowed out of, then the Weber Grill, attached to our hotel, which turned out to be a 3ish hour wait, back to Ruth Chris, and finally: take-out from PF Changs. There was
some confusion as we didn't have a menu but poor Sean worked out with the person on the phone that we wanted the dish that was LIKE General Tso's Chicken but they called it something else.... Eventually we were tearing into our tasty victuals and making numerous jokes while hanging out in one of the miniature event halls. I think
there were ten of us dining on PF Changs and bottled water, and probably the envy of our peers; trapped as they were with the less-than-appetizing cuisine of the convention hall. Eat it, nerds!
After dinner Sean and I hiked back to the hotel to grab our Rezolution minis, because it was going to be Rez time at 8:00. When we got back, Bryan/Stratos and his crew were setting up tables while Aaron and the rest of the Disorderlies were playing Three Dragon Ante. I helped set up a few tables and then remarked how freakin TINY the table were - 3'x3'. Granted, Rezolution plays best on small tables,
but this might have been Too Much. It turned out that we didn't have that many players so that we could increase the tables back to a more playable size. Aaron should consider himself damned lucky.
1st Game, played Aaron. I got stuck at the Defender, which is really goofy for a hand-to-hand army like mine. Oh well. Thanks to SImon sitting with us, Aaron and I spent the first half of the playing time chatting with him - picking his brain, really - and not actually playing our game. After SImon departed we started the game in earnest, and the fur flew. Well, mostly, it was buckshot. His damn Enforcers splattered my Lektra Vassals left and right - but lucky for me they are cheap and
oh-so-expendable. By the time game was called he won the scenario by killing my Hacker. Oops. Beyond that my army was in pretty good shape - the fodder was dead, but that's their JOB. Like I said, Dravani as defender is weird.
2nd Game was against Bryan/Stratos's Ronin. It was a Capture the Flag game, but it wasn't really meant to be played on a large board. So largely the flags were forgotten and we dove into a giant central scrum. It was a big dogpile with my Dravani Human Form, Bride of Lillith, Shootist and company facing his Panthers, Fists, etc. The scrum grew larger every turn but there was no clear winner. When time
was called I won by...2 points.
I ain't proud. 2 points and a W is still a W.
After a short discussion, and some members of the tourney deciding they were worn out, we decided to switch over to a bit of a megabattle. 7 players, 300 points each - Tony of Aberrant with CSO, Aaron with APAC, Marc and Sean with Ronin, Billy with CSO, Bryan/Stratos with Vatacina and me with Dravani, on a large round table.
Carnage? Oh hell yes.
Basically before the first turn everyone told the people next to them they would not attack them, and on the first turn, pretty much everyone proved to be a liar. I attacked the Vatacina to my right and was attacked by the APAC to my left. (It was like a game of the CCG Jyhad/Vampire: The Eternal Struggle!) Marc, eternal opportunist, took the high ground with a Brick armed with a rocket launcher and fucked everyone's world. Well, everyone he could see - which didn't include me. (God Bless Soulless and their Smoke ability!) Stuff was dying all over the place, and the game moved damn quick for being seven players who were making jokes and generally laughing our asses off. Tony was fricking hilarious, apparently in part due to several bottles of vodka.
Bryan/Stratos and Billy seemed a little taken aback at first - they aren't used to the Disorderlies Brand of Gaming - but they eventually were dropping F-bombs left and right like the rest of us. One particular highlight: Marc was murdering Tony's CSO, just splattering him on good rolls, and the few times that Tony rolled 12's, Marc did too! Aaron, as a kindness, grabbed Marc's dice and tossed them across the hall. Tony chased after them to see if the damned things rolled sixes way the hell over there, too...(IIRC it was a 6 and a 2)
Finally we wrapped up at nearly three and trunched back to the hotel. There was discussion of loading the car and getting it over with, but as Conte was sleeping, and the location of his keys unknown, I just packed up my stuff in a corner and bunked out.....
SUNDAY: ....for about four hours. I awoke to the AIR RAID SIREN that was Alex snoring. I thought I was bad. I got up, showered - the last day of racing five other people into the shower, thankfully - and woke up Conte so that we could load the car and get on with our day. We wanted to be on the road around noon and still make one final pass the dealer hall. The whole group was slow to rouse and we finally made it
over to the dealer hall close to 11:00. I tried to pick up some figures for Paul but the company claimed they hadn't had the time to cast the production models yet - dumbasses! THIS IS GEN CON! I bought 5 CDs from Stratos's group and I dropped another $40 at the Aberrant booth - $200 total for the weekend, although $78 of that wasn't for me - and everyone else grabbed a few more things. We waited for the SAGA
miniatures drawing at the Aberrant booth, and when none of us won, we griped for a minute (in jest, of course - they announced there would be another drawing at 3:00, and we all tossed our tickets to Billy, who won the FIRST one too)
We got on the road about 12:15. The ride back was uneventful except for the part where I started to nod (around 3:00 PM) and decided that perhaps Conte really should be driving....
We got to my place at 9:45 and unloaded all of my stuff. Thus endeth the Gen Con 2007 experience. It was fun. Next year....maybe again.
WEDNESDAY: Got up at the ungodly 5:00 AM - only a half hour earlier than usual, but that half-hour is painful! Particularly when the night before I was anxious, packing everything for the trip and facing a rebellion among the typically well-behaved items in my home like the laundry room tub which decided to clog and overflow on Tuesday night. All of which conspired to keep me awake until practically midnight. So,fun...
Mr. Conte arrived at 5:15 and helped toss all of my stuff into his car. Three miniature cases, one backpack, one duffel bag of clothes, laptop, printer, cooler chest full of water....set to go.
And so by 5:45 we were on the road to Gen Con.
The trip there was very uneventful. The ride was 9 hours that passed pretty quickly; we didn't face any of the traffic snarls of previous years. We were amused that we stopped and had lunch at the same Arbys that we had hit either 2-3 years previous. There were several times that I said "This looks familiar" until we both realized it. We actually spent little time wasted - slam food, refill gas tank, hit the
bathrooms, back on the road. It was even sweeter to learn that we were way in the lead for Team Disorderlies on the road - Tim's car was about an hour behind, and Aaron and company, three hours.
We arrived at the hotel a bit after 3:00. The Embassy Suites were a strange place - very weird getting in and getting out, and that caused us (well, certainly me) some confusion. It WAS accessible through the Indy skywalk, but the trip was twice as long as just walking the damn streets. Going into the wrong door also meant a windy inside trip to the elevators. And biggest pain in the ass of all, despite being only
on the 7th floor - 3 up from the "ground" level - we could only go up by elevator. Which were damn slow all weekend. Plus they wouldn't let us take a cart of our stuff up ourselves; rather aggravating to be FORCED to use staff help.
The room itself was also a bit of a let-down because we expected a suite with two bedrooms and one common room - and got only a single bedroom and common room. And one bathroom. With 6 guys, it was a little cramped, moreso as each of us carried in more and more purchases...
After Brian and I checked in, we hit the hall, getting our swag bags, running into Tim and Samx, and generally scoping the place out. There were a lot of people in the ticket lines for events and generally the energy was pretty charged in excitement. We tried to get a locker but all the ones we could access were full, and the rest out of reach - most the convention center wasn't open to the public yet, so we decided we'd need to take care of it in the morning.
We went back to the hotel to digest the goodies in the swag bag (World of Warcraft CCG starter! Axis and Allies minis booster pack! WHAT, NO DICE???) and wait on Aaron. After they arrived, we went over to Buca di Beppo for a fine, fine Italian meal with 14 of us there - several of Aaron's air force friends, some of Steve Hilley's friends, etc. I knew maybe half the folks, but most of them by the end of the weekend I could actually remember their name. Or just their face. Still, it was fun,filling, and despite being at the Pope Table (complete with SPINNING POPE in the center) there were some pretty debauched stories being told, and more profanity than a Chris Rock concert.
Post-dinner we went down to the Ram to snag a table for gaming. In the back room of the Ram they have set aside tables specifically for playing games and drinking. So we did. Descent and Infernal Machine were both trundled out. I played Descent for a bit; I think there were several rounds of Infernal Machine played and finished. After about an hour of playing, I decided I was beat and begged off to head back to the room. I conked out shortly thereafter in prep for....
THURSDAY: Got an early rise to get in the shower and get prepped for the day ahead. Our hotel had a large breakfast buffet where nothing was all that tasty but it was at least quite filling. We all gobbled our food while eying the clock like conspirators. The big target was the 10:00 AM dealer hall opening, whereupon it was GO TIME to snag such coveted items as Rezolution: Outbreak, Hordes: Evolution, Tannhauser, the Starcraft board game, etc. We were all in for a bit of shock to learn that the hall opening was delayed until 11:00 instead of 10:00 due
to some sort of "opening ceremonies" silliness. We grumbled with the masses of people - none of us care about these "ceremonies!" We care about the dispensation of monies! OUR monies! Nevertheless we weathered the extra hour and eventually were granted access to The Hall.
The Dealer's Hall never ceases to amaze me. Even when I worked at Gen Cons and got early access - when people were still erecting their booths - it's still an overwhelming assault on the senses. Add in several thousand - maybe 10 thousand even - people into that, and it's roiling chaos that can't really be understood, only witnessed and endured. And endured we did. As soon as we were able to press through the swarm forcing their way inside, we split off on our various missions to
acquire our desired loots. Aaron to the Fantasy Flight booth in search of Starcraft and Tannhauser. Tim to the Privateer Press, as his Nationals ticket allowed him access to the express line. I went to the Aberrant Games booth to pick up six copies of Outbreak for various group members present and not. Product grabbed, credit cards swiped, smiles acquired - the process worked well except that Starcraft wouldn't be on sale until 2:00 PM. Blast! I got into a long, slow line at the Rackham booth for the LE AT-43 and Confrontation figures, as well as army books for UNA and Red Blok. Damned Conte pilled his books onto me when it turned out that the line was crawling because the hot Rackham chick who was taking money had to connect all the way to France for their credit card processing, and it was s-l-o-w. At least she was, in fact, very easy on the eyes.
Laden with booty, we wandered the halls until we could take no more. Then we wandered off to find Tim in Nationals- which turned out to be a cluster-fuck of disorganization - and various peoples to various games. Rob F, Alex, Aaron and Sean went to take part in a 4-way AT-43 game against...well, each other. The AT-43 and Confrontation events were pretty much fucked all weekend by several reports. Conte and I went to grab lunch and then prep for our Hordes games that night, which we had
heard might be rather delayed thanks to the fuck-up with Nationals. GREAT!
It turned out that our Hordes Games weren't terribly delayed, only partially. However things really weren't clicking. I played two rounds - both against Cygnar - and after two losses got a bye - my opponent apparently had left just before they announced pairings. So I had the option to either sit and wait for what could have been two hours or find something else to do. I ended up killing time for about a half hour before wandering off - first to see some Rezolution games, including
Marc schooling THE GAME'S DESIGNER - and then finally back to the room, where Aaron, Sean and I chatted for a while before I crashed.
FRIDAY - Woke up at 9:00. I was surprised to sleep so late. Half of the other occupants of the room had long gone - Conte and Aaron both had 8:00 AM painting classes. I think the only ones left were Sean, Alex and I - Alex had purportedly closed down a bar at 4:00 AM and Sean and I just slept like logs.
I had a shockingly painful revelation about how much I LOVE the convention center cement floors as my feet both screamed with every step. Advil swallowed, shower taken, and eventually Sean and I wandered over to Einstein Bagels for sweet sweet coffee (the brown nectar of life) and some breakfast - we'd overslept the hotel's buffet. Sean had some RPG games to run, and I was scheduled for a 12:00 500 point Dark Age tourney.
After some brief hall wandering, I settled into the hall for the Dark Age tourney - across from where Aaron was playing Infinity - and watched a few games while waiting for mine to start. There were 8 total players - and half of them were Forsaken, all Saint Mark. Fan-tas-tic.
My three games:
1. Against Dragyri - I very nearly won this game. My mission was to grab one of his models and race it back to my deployment zone whereupon it would be made into dinner for the starving Skarrd masses. Alas despite capturing several of them (illegally - re-reading the card I learned I couldn't have more than one captured at a time) he eventually beat my forces down to a pulp and won.
2. Against St. Mark - What's that? Almost all shooting against my force with only a single ranged attack? SA-WEET-TAH. I got my assed kicked and it hurt. I really don't know how I could have pulled this game out, there were only 6 pieces of terrain of value and a handful of smaller pieces.
3. Against St. Mark again - oh, the horror. Different player, same result.
I was 0-3 for the tourney. The judge, impressed with my ability to withstand oppression, gave me BEST SPORTSMAN and a $5 gift cert...which I never used. Oops.
After the tourney we wandered the halls a bit more then prepped for dinner. Dinner was courtesy Blue Devil Games at the Alcatraz Brewery. Aaron and Sean were playing in a special RPG game for Charity; Rob F, Conte, Steve Hiley, Alex and I were all there as...onlookers. There were five more onlookers as well. We were all wined and dined - well, sort of, I'll get to that in a moment - courtesy on of the owners of Blue Devil, reported to be a lawyer. Sadly the wining and dining were troubled by
the facts that:
1. We were in a private room upstairs (which was HOT!) far from the kitchen
2. The place was packed
3. The servers were overwhelmed by having us AND a wedding rehearsal dinner there, as well as a few other large groups
So there was some grumbling on that front. I had several glasses of water and a burger about 10:00 PM. I think we ordered at 8:30. Ah well.
I will have to note that watching an RPG: just about as boring as you would expect. I can't even sit and pay attention to a miniatures game for over an hour; this ended up being more than four hours. There were two sole redeeming factors: a very attractive young woman in a corset, and a particularly amusing system of charity funding - whenever the players or the onlookers wanted to impact the game - be in a die roll or random event or whatever - money would get tossed into a big bowl and
the GM notified of "the new way it's gonna be". This turned into a bidding war at times when people tossed in $20s and others followed with $20 more to nullify the first demand...etc etc. All told there was over $1000 in that pot raised for charity. I regret that I never tossed money in - I was really holding out for a nasty point near the climax, but the GM dropped the "to be continued...." line and closed out the session.
Oh well.
After that, more wandering the convention area to check out the pick-up games, then, off to bed.
SATURDAY: Woke up about 8:00. Hit Starbucks for the morning cuppa, and met Tim's wife Samx to get back my Zap-A-Gap glue which Conte was nice enough to leave in Tim's bag. (I needed to glue together a few Dark Age figures that hadn't taken well to Friday's abuse) Meandered over to the convention center, wandered the dealer hall for a bit - Master Chief from Halo was at the Wizkids booth taking pictures with anyone interested - and there was a long line of interested. I shook my head and wandered over to the Wizards of the Coast booth. It was in the back right corner - waaaaaay off from the entrances - and packed.
Apparently they had announced D&D 4th Edition on Thursday but I discovered it from an email from Paul. It's a sad day when there is so much information overload that a man ON SITE is getting his news from back home. Anyway, they were sharing tidbits with folks and given that D&D is the mother-of-all-RPGs (plus offspring like d20 and OGL and whatnot) people were very interested in hearing whatever they could.
As a result of the packed mass, I learned just about nothing. And didn't learn about the D&D Miniatures games massive changes at all until I got home. Go me.
So having learned pretty much nothing there, I retreated to the room to prep for the Dark Age tourney that started at noon. I watched a little bit of Aaron's Infinity games while I was there, and chatted with Tim (post-painting classes) and Conte (desperately trying to avoid stalking the dealer hall for opportunistic attacks) as I re-glued a few figures. Pr0fane - one of the Dark Age staff (actual name: Dean) snapped a couple of pictures of the Dark Age tables while I was gluing, and it
looks like I'm Billy No-Mates.
Go me.
Anyway, the Dark Age Tourney:
750 points. Xtreme Rules - basically, you have three missions, and you have to pick one per game - can't repeat them. I played my Skarrd again, like on Friday, but the extra 250 points really allowed me a lot more room for beatsticks in the form of Raze, two Harpies and a Chitin.
1st Game - Played against a St. Mark Forsaken Force. Don't you Forsaken players have ANYTHING but guns? It was actually a brutal battle - I prevented him from scoring his objective, I achieved mine but he gunned down the troops who did it (Buzzblades, which aren't hard to kill at all) and thus it was just about Last Man Standing. In the end he had only St Mark with a single wound left, and I had my Abomination
with 3 (of 5) wounds left. Tallied up the points and I won...by 4 points. My opponent and I were both speechless. But I'll take the W, my first of the weekend.
2nd Game - Played against a Skarrd force. Actually this was a pretty interesting match-up, as his force was nothing like mine. He had: A Hoodoo, Saber, 3 Bolas, Sister of Charity, 4 of Charity's Might,Grafter... a few other things. Basically a non-Toxin Cult list. I don't know if it was the list match-up or just different play styles, but I really, really, rocked his world. I had the majority of my army
intact and wiped him out.
So I was up 2 Wins and no losses....and only one other player in the tourney with the same record. Since the tourney was running long and about to smack into another scheduled event, they decided to make match three just the two of us for all the marbles.
It turned out to be the same player I'd played on Friday in my 2nd game.
3rd Game - St. Mark Forsaken Force, with ALL GUNS. That's right. ONE model in this force didn't have a gun, and it was the @#$%#@ Field Medic, who keeps me from scoring points by saving people that I get lucky enough to kill. On the table we were playing on, with only 6 pieces of terrain, this was an ugly, ugly fight, and I spent most of the game plucking models off the table. I managed to deal him a few
causalities, but no where near enough to complete my mission or win the game.
So, 2nd place finish in the 750 Dark Age tourney. And for my prize....absolutely nothing. Oh well.
After the tourney and discussing my new Tannhauser acquisition with one of the Dark Age guys (BJ, no idea his actual name) we left to go wander the dealer's hall further, and come up with some food plans. The Saturday night dinner plan had shifted around steadily - there was talk of going to Ruth Chris's, which I had bowed out of, then the Weber Grill, attached to our hotel, which turned out to be a 3ish hour wait, back to Ruth Chris, and finally: take-out from PF Changs. There was
some confusion as we didn't have a menu but poor Sean worked out with the person on the phone that we wanted the dish that was LIKE General Tso's Chicken but they called it something else.... Eventually we were tearing into our tasty victuals and making numerous jokes while hanging out in one of the miniature event halls. I think
there were ten of us dining on PF Changs and bottled water, and probably the envy of our peers; trapped as they were with the less-than-appetizing cuisine of the convention hall. Eat it, nerds!
After dinner Sean and I hiked back to the hotel to grab our Rezolution minis, because it was going to be Rez time at 8:00. When we got back, Bryan/Stratos and his crew were setting up tables while Aaron and the rest of the Disorderlies were playing Three Dragon Ante. I helped set up a few tables and then remarked how freakin TINY the table were - 3'x3'. Granted, Rezolution plays best on small tables,
but this might have been Too Much. It turned out that we didn't have that many players so that we could increase the tables back to a more playable size. Aaron should consider himself damned lucky.
1st Game, played Aaron. I got stuck at the Defender, which is really goofy for a hand-to-hand army like mine. Oh well. Thanks to SImon sitting with us, Aaron and I spent the first half of the playing time chatting with him - picking his brain, really - and not actually playing our game. After SImon departed we started the game in earnest, and the fur flew. Well, mostly, it was buckshot. His damn Enforcers splattered my Lektra Vassals left and right - but lucky for me they are cheap and
oh-so-expendable. By the time game was called he won the scenario by killing my Hacker. Oops. Beyond that my army was in pretty good shape - the fodder was dead, but that's their JOB. Like I said, Dravani as defender is weird.
2nd Game was against Bryan/Stratos's Ronin. It was a Capture the Flag game, but it wasn't really meant to be played on a large board. So largely the flags were forgotten and we dove into a giant central scrum. It was a big dogpile with my Dravani Human Form, Bride of Lillith, Shootist and company facing his Panthers, Fists, etc. The scrum grew larger every turn but there was no clear winner. When time
was called I won by...2 points.
I ain't proud. 2 points and a W is still a W.
After a short discussion, and some members of the tourney deciding they were worn out, we decided to switch over to a bit of a megabattle. 7 players, 300 points each - Tony of Aberrant with CSO, Aaron with APAC, Marc and Sean with Ronin, Billy with CSO, Bryan/Stratos with Vatacina and me with Dravani, on a large round table.
Carnage? Oh hell yes.
Basically before the first turn everyone told the people next to them they would not attack them, and on the first turn, pretty much everyone proved to be a liar. I attacked the Vatacina to my right and was attacked by the APAC to my left. (It was like a game of the CCG Jyhad/Vampire: The Eternal Struggle!) Marc, eternal opportunist, took the high ground with a Brick armed with a rocket launcher and fucked everyone's world. Well, everyone he could see - which didn't include me. (God Bless Soulless and their Smoke ability!) Stuff was dying all over the place, and the game moved damn quick for being seven players who were making jokes and generally laughing our asses off. Tony was fricking hilarious, apparently in part due to several bottles of vodka.
Bryan/Stratos and Billy seemed a little taken aback at first - they aren't used to the Disorderlies Brand of Gaming - but they eventually were dropping F-bombs left and right like the rest of us. One particular highlight: Marc was murdering Tony's CSO, just splattering him on good rolls, and the few times that Tony rolled 12's, Marc did too! Aaron, as a kindness, grabbed Marc's dice and tossed them across the hall. Tony chased after them to see if the damned things rolled sixes way the hell over there, too...(IIRC it was a 6 and a 2)
Finally we wrapped up at nearly three and trunched back to the hotel. There was discussion of loading the car and getting it over with, but as Conte was sleeping, and the location of his keys unknown, I just packed up my stuff in a corner and bunked out.....
SUNDAY: ....for about four hours. I awoke to the AIR RAID SIREN that was Alex snoring. I thought I was bad. I got up, showered - the last day of racing five other people into the shower, thankfully - and woke up Conte so that we could load the car and get on with our day. We wanted to be on the road around noon and still make one final pass the dealer hall. The whole group was slow to rouse and we finally made it
over to the dealer hall close to 11:00. I tried to pick up some figures for Paul but the company claimed they hadn't had the time to cast the production models yet - dumbasses! THIS IS GEN CON! I bought 5 CDs from Stratos's group and I dropped another $40 at the Aberrant booth - $200 total for the weekend, although $78 of that wasn't for me - and everyone else grabbed a few more things. We waited for the SAGA
miniatures drawing at the Aberrant booth, and when none of us won, we griped for a minute (in jest, of course - they announced there would be another drawing at 3:00, and we all tossed our tickets to Billy, who won the FIRST one too)
We got on the road about 12:15. The ride back was uneventful except for the part where I started to nod (around 3:00 PM) and decided that perhaps Conte really should be driving....
We got to my place at 9:45 and unloaded all of my stuff. Thus endeth the Gen Con 2007 experience. It was fun. Next year....maybe again.
Monday, August 13, 2007
GenCon T minus Aw Crap
Less than 48 hours until departure for GenCon and where are you at in your preparations?
As previously discussed, for the bulk of GenCon I've got painting classes lined up and only two games scheduled: Hordes Nationals and an AT-43 game. Over the weekend I finialized my Skorne Army lists, finished required touch-ups and finally got the whole force varnished.
However I have my own new dark horse in the race for miniatures: Infinity. You guys remeber the game that a few of us picked up a starter force for and then never did anything with? Well the miniatures for that game are once again calling my name. The Nomads are really calling my name, and I think I'll be crashing the planned tournament to get a look at the mechanics.
As previously discussed, for the bulk of GenCon I've got painting classes lined up and only two games scheduled: Hordes Nationals and an AT-43 game. Over the weekend I finialized my Skorne Army lists, finished required touch-ups and finally got the whole force varnished.
However I have my own new dark horse in the race for miniatures: Infinity. You guys remeber the game that a few of us picked up a starter force for and then never did anything with? Well the miniatures for that game are once again calling my name. The Nomads are really calling my name, and I think I'll be crashing the planned tournament to get a look at the mechanics.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Gen Con
Two weeks away and the excitement comes crashing like a fist to the jaw coupled with a mild electric shock up the backside.
It kinda tingles.
Whereas I deliberately eschewed reviewing the pre-reg book and only actually got signed up for one event, now I'm drooling over the possibilities and the breadth of miniature gaming action that is available. Of course this has delivered me a fearsome lack of preparation, but anything that is worth doing is worth doing at the last minute in a blind mole rat-esque rush of panic and desperation.
I'm sure it would be fun to watch if I weren't the one portraying the blind mole rat.
My one signed-up-for game is Hordes, and somehow I'm now bringing the equivalence of FOUR armies for it with not that much crossover. This has required me not only to dump [cash number redacted in case my wife ever stumbles across this] into getting new models, but also Conte to paint his fingers raw to get them on the table for me. That Conte, he's a hell of a guy. And if he is reading this, he really should be spending his time PAINTING instead!!
Game two is Rezolution, which I've been very hit and miss on. I like the game well enough, though, and I do have a nice-sized army for it, so, what the hell.
The new and final game that I am bringing stuff for is Dark Age. Dark Age? Wha? Yes, I've been lured in by that dastardly Aaron into actually bringing stuff AND playing. I don't know what is wrong with me. But there had better be some good prize support....
It kinda tingles.
Whereas I deliberately eschewed reviewing the pre-reg book and only actually got signed up for one event, now I'm drooling over the possibilities and the breadth of miniature gaming action that is available. Of course this has delivered me a fearsome lack of preparation, but anything that is worth doing is worth doing at the last minute in a blind mole rat-esque rush of panic and desperation.
I'm sure it would be fun to watch if I weren't the one portraying the blind mole rat.
My one signed-up-for game is Hordes, and somehow I'm now bringing the equivalence of FOUR armies for it with not that much crossover. This has required me not only to dump [cash number redacted in case my wife ever stumbles across this] into getting new models, but also Conte to paint his fingers raw to get them on the table for me. That Conte, he's a hell of a guy. And if he is reading this, he really should be spending his time PAINTING instead!!
Game two is Rezolution, which I've been very hit and miss on. I like the game well enough, though, and I do have a nice-sized army for it, so, what the hell.
The new and final game that I am bringing stuff for is Dark Age. Dark Age? Wha? Yes, I've been lured in by that dastardly Aaron into actually bringing stuff AND playing. I don't know what is wrong with me. But there had better be some good prize support....
Thursday, June 21, 2007
You’ve been hiding what? WHERE?!
So in the combined interest of stream lining my office and getting the house on the Market, I’ve been going through my “collection” and discovered I have a whole lot of CRAP! The following is a list of Items I have found in my office that really has questionable purpose at best.
-Box filled with 2nd Ed 40k plastic Orks and Goblins. Also probably 60 or so ‘Ere We Go era plastic and metal orks.
-Box full of plastic Imperial infantry from the Mutant Chronicles boxed game.
-Decent Collection of for Gorka Morka Orks. Including about 5 Trukks, and 4 or so Bikes. Plus a lot of metal add on bits like ramming bars, weapons, harpoons, and Wrecking Ball. Anyone else remember the grand plan to start playing Gorka Morka about 3 or so years ago
-Necromunda: House Esher box set, and Plastic Goliaths from the Necromunda Box Set. Anyone else remember the grand plan to start playing Necromunda about 3 or so years ago
-About 20 25mm Metal WWII British Heavy Weapon Platoon Paratroopers. From my brief interest in a WWII game about ~8 Years Ago.
-Pre-Battlefleet gothic plastic Eldar Warships, I don’t even remember what game this came from, but they are GW figs.
-Exocet Missiles from an old 1:48 scale Mirage Fighter model (circa 1997)
-Cluster Bombs, 500 pound Iron Bombs, and Maverick Missiles from a 1:48 scale A-10 Warthog model circa 1997)
-Space Ranger Plastic miniatures and heavy weapon Sprues
-Rogue Trader Era Plastic Imperial Marines
-Chainmail: Dark Elf, Dwarf, Gnoll, and Centaur figures
-2/3rds of an Old Skool Imeprial Land Raider. Consisting of both Tracks and the upper Hull, but no weapons)
So I’ve decided it’s time to cull the collection. A fair amount went into the Trash. A lot got combined into new plastic containers, or sorted through and placed in new Bitz Boxes. I’m a firm believer in Bitz Boxes. But occasionally you need to go back and cull through the Bitz Boxes and make sure that you aren’t just carrying around trash.
-Box filled with 2nd Ed 40k plastic Orks and Goblins. Also probably 60 or so ‘Ere We Go era plastic and metal orks.
-Box full of plastic Imperial infantry from the Mutant Chronicles boxed game.
-Decent Collection of for Gorka Morka Orks. Including about 5 Trukks, and 4 or so Bikes. Plus a lot of metal add on bits like ramming bars, weapons, harpoons, and Wrecking Ball. Anyone else remember the grand plan to start playing Gorka Morka about 3 or so years ago
-Necromunda: House Esher box set, and Plastic Goliaths from the Necromunda Box Set. Anyone else remember the grand plan to start playing Necromunda about 3 or so years ago
-About 20 25mm Metal WWII British Heavy Weapon Platoon Paratroopers. From my brief interest in a WWII game about ~8 Years Ago.
-Pre-Battlefleet gothic plastic Eldar Warships, I don’t even remember what game this came from, but they are GW figs.
-Exocet Missiles from an old 1:48 scale Mirage Fighter model (circa 1997)
-Cluster Bombs, 500 pound Iron Bombs, and Maverick Missiles from a 1:48 scale A-10 Warthog model circa 1997)
-Space Ranger Plastic miniatures and heavy weapon Sprues
-Rogue Trader Era Plastic Imperial Marines
-Chainmail: Dark Elf, Dwarf, Gnoll, and Centaur figures
-2/3rds of an Old Skool Imeprial Land Raider. Consisting of both Tracks and the upper Hull, but no weapons)
So I’ve decided it’s time to cull the collection. A fair amount went into the Trash. A lot got combined into new plastic containers, or sorted through and placed in new Bitz Boxes. I’m a firm believer in Bitz Boxes. But occasionally you need to go back and cull through the Bitz Boxes and make sure that you aren’t just carrying around trash.
Monday, June 18, 2007
I believe the term is "swingularity"
Man, what is it that makes me, out of the blue, want to play some game from back when, even a game I've never played before? The recent example is Superfigs. But it's by no means the first, and will by no means be the last.
Where does that impulse come from?
Where does that impulse come from?
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Needz moar gamin
This gaming dry spell needs to end!
Scheduled events: Thursday June 21 - FULL THRUST against Aaron
Saturday June 23 - HORDES against Tim, possibly Brian and Aaron
JULY - The weekends are largely shot as I'll be doing home improvement. Go me.
AUGUST - Gen Con! Thursday August 16 - Sunday August 19th.
Scheduled events: Thursday June 21 - FULL THRUST against Aaron
Saturday June 23 - HORDES against Tim, possibly Brian and Aaron
JULY - The weekends are largely shot as I'll be doing home improvement. Go me.
AUGUST - Gen Con! Thursday August 16 - Sunday August 19th.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Long-lived games
I am not actually talking about those game-sessions that last forever, but instead about games that have a long life with me.
My Swingulairity - which will now undergo a nomenclature change to Mercurialality - ensures that I have to follow a good many games lest I get bored entirely with this "gaming" phenom that routinely eats up large portions of my life. However since I am blessed/cursed with Mercurialality (nee Swingulairity) I can instead shift my focus from one game to the next and simply be completely cash-poor potentially forever.
There are, however, some issues with this. There are games that shine bright but fade fast (VOID? VOR?). There are games that never really make an impact (Heavy Gear and Clan War, despite some heavy investment in both). And then there are evergreen games like Warhammer.
Even though I am gearing up for Hordes and D&D Miniatures at Gen Con (and possibly Rezolution, who knows? Mercurialality!) I spent some time this weekend talking Warhammer with Collett. Collett loves Warhammer like it were his own child, and it's probably the only child he will ever have. Despite the fact that I only play it a few times per year at best, the Warhammer world and its armies keep me coming back year after year.
So as a result of talking with Collett and getting the Warhammer juices flowing (altogether now: ewwww!) I sat down and looked over my armies.
I presently have:
Painted:
2k of Chaos Warriors (Nurgle Themed)
2k of Beastmen
1500 points of Ogre Kingdoms (mostly painted)
2k of Tomb Kings
2k of Empire (although honestly I haven't compared it to the new Empire army book; that number might be way off)
Unpainted:
1k of Dwarves (largely two sets of stuff from the Battle for Skull Pass box)
1k of Dark Elves
Around the end of '06/start of '07 Collett and I planned for a Warhammer campaign, my Tomb Kings versus his Orcs. We played the 1st battle for this campaign as a megabattle up at the Arena. The planned campaign itself never happened due to Collett leaving his employment in Columbia (5 minutes from me) and now working in Rockville. Nevertheless we are talking about playing on June 9th, and perhaps getting in two of the planned Campaign scenarios. Could be fun.
My Swingulairity - which will now undergo a nomenclature change to Mercurialality - ensures that I have to follow a good many games lest I get bored entirely with this "gaming" phenom that routinely eats up large portions of my life. However since I am blessed/cursed with Mercurialality (nee Swingulairity) I can instead shift my focus from one game to the next and simply be completely cash-poor potentially forever.
There are, however, some issues with this. There are games that shine bright but fade fast (VOID? VOR?). There are games that never really make an impact (Heavy Gear and Clan War, despite some heavy investment in both). And then there are evergreen games like Warhammer.
Even though I am gearing up for Hordes and D&D Miniatures at Gen Con (and possibly Rezolution, who knows? Mercurialality!) I spent some time this weekend talking Warhammer with Collett. Collett loves Warhammer like it were his own child, and it's probably the only child he will ever have. Despite the fact that I only play it a few times per year at best, the Warhammer world and its armies keep me coming back year after year.
So as a result of talking with Collett and getting the Warhammer juices flowing (altogether now: ewwww!) I sat down and looked over my armies.
I presently have:
Painted:
2k of Chaos Warriors (Nurgle Themed)
2k of Beastmen
1500 points of Ogre Kingdoms (mostly painted)
2k of Tomb Kings
2k of Empire (although honestly I haven't compared it to the new Empire army book; that number might be way off)
Unpainted:
1k of Dwarves (largely two sets of stuff from the Battle for Skull Pass box)
1k of Dark Elves
Around the end of '06/start of '07 Collett and I planned for a Warhammer campaign, my Tomb Kings versus his Orcs. We played the 1st battle for this campaign as a megabattle up at the Arena. The planned campaign itself never happened due to Collett leaving his employment in Columbia (5 minutes from me) and now working in Rockville. Nevertheless we are talking about playing on June 9th, and perhaps getting in two of the planned Campaign scenarios. Could be fun.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
When lost, just build a house. Then you're home!
I hate losing stuff.
With a collection as...well, large as mine, it's impossible to track with 100% accuracy. I never know where everything is, all the time. I'm happy to loan out books. Given my pathetic reliance on other painters, I know I have portions of my collections - often entire armies - scattered around in the hands of others.
Despite all of this, when I can't find something, it drives me CRAZY. And that's a mighty short trip.
The only upside to this insanity is that it does push me to better organize things. So I spent some time cleaning up my shelving, reordering books, trying to both to improve things for the future as well as find the damn books I'm missing.
They are still missing, of course..... %@%$%#$%%^$%^
With a collection as...well, large as mine, it's impossible to track with 100% accuracy. I never know where everything is, all the time. I'm happy to loan out books. Given my pathetic reliance on other painters, I know I have portions of my collections - often entire armies - scattered around in the hands of others.
Despite all of this, when I can't find something, it drives me CRAZY. And that's a mighty short trip.
The only upside to this insanity is that it does push me to better organize things. So I spent some time cleaning up my shelving, reordering books, trying to both to improve things for the future as well as find the damn books I'm missing.
They are still missing, of course..... %@%$%#$%%^$%^
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Play the damn game!
This stems from a number of conversations I've had over the past few days.
A lot of the Disorderlies gaming mindset is very "event" driven. We need external motivational factors to get us pointed in a direction. Like Conte said to me the other day, "Well, we're not called the Disorderlies for nothing."
Tournaments, megabattles, storyline events - all of these things are, in fact, great motivators for the group to get armies painted, line up times and places and generally get our largely lazy asses focused for a goal, and that's all very noble in the cause of actually getting together to play.
However...
I think to some degree this mindset has hurt us as much as it has helped. Yes, while a stated goal has helped us wrangle together the largely chaotic and fractured schedules we all keep, it also means that some people feel compelled now only to move for an event.
Basically, if it's not big and showy and flashy, it isn't really enough to capture their attention.
Over the past few months, I've actually been very good about getting regular games in. Despite all of the other things going on in my world, we successfully ran the D&D "Unhallowed" league, I've played several games of 40k, we were having semi-frequent Hordes games, and had a long-discussed Warmachine/Hordes scenario battle.
In short, I've done a lot of gaming.
I really think a lot of the onus of this has been simple: I want to game. I know I'm fickle, and I jump from army to army and game to game faster than some members of the Disorderlies change their undergarments, but you know what? I'm fine with that. I don't give a damn what somewhat else's opinion on the matter is.
So I've scheduled whatever I want to play and for the most part I've stuck to that. The DDM League ran four weeks, interrupted once for me going to play Horrorclix, but beyond that it stuck. It was only four players, but in the end, it would have still worked with only two.
One opponent and me is all I need for a game. Yes, I imagine I would get bored playing the same person forever. So far, that hasn't been an issue, and I don't imagine it will. But I don't need an event to pique my interest. I don't need to give myself the headache of wrangling as much of the Disorderlies as I get together just for me to have a good time - in fact, honestly, wrangling the Disorderlies is about an unfun as I can think of. We are busy, disparate people, and it's too damn much like herding malevolent cats on crack sometimes.
That might be an oxymoron. But it works.
A lot of the Disorderlies gaming mindset is very "event" driven. We need external motivational factors to get us pointed in a direction. Like Conte said to me the other day, "Well, we're not called the Disorderlies for nothing."
Tournaments, megabattles, storyline events - all of these things are, in fact, great motivators for the group to get armies painted, line up times and places and generally get our largely lazy asses focused for a goal, and that's all very noble in the cause of actually getting together to play.
However...
I think to some degree this mindset has hurt us as much as it has helped. Yes, while a stated goal has helped us wrangle together the largely chaotic and fractured schedules we all keep, it also means that some people feel compelled now only to move for an event.
Basically, if it's not big and showy and flashy, it isn't really enough to capture their attention.
Over the past few months, I've actually been very good about getting regular games in. Despite all of the other things going on in my world, we successfully ran the D&D "Unhallowed" league, I've played several games of 40k, we were having semi-frequent Hordes games, and had a long-discussed Warmachine/Hordes scenario battle.
In short, I've done a lot of gaming.
I really think a lot of the onus of this has been simple: I want to game. I know I'm fickle, and I jump from army to army and game to game faster than some members of the Disorderlies change their undergarments, but you know what? I'm fine with that. I don't give a damn what somewhat else's opinion on the matter is.
So I've scheduled whatever I want to play and for the most part I've stuck to that. The DDM League ran four weeks, interrupted once for me going to play Horrorclix, but beyond that it stuck. It was only four players, but in the end, it would have still worked with only two.
One opponent and me is all I need for a game. Yes, I imagine I would get bored playing the same person forever. So far, that hasn't been an issue, and I don't imagine it will. But I don't need an event to pique my interest. I don't need to give myself the headache of wrangling as much of the Disorderlies as I get together just for me to have a good time - in fact, honestly, wrangling the Disorderlies is about an unfun as I can think of. We are busy, disparate people, and it's too damn much like herding malevolent cats on crack sometimes.
That might be an oxymoron. But it works.
Friday, May 04, 2007
The Lull
Those folks who have gamed in my company for extended periods - which is most of the people I game with, and, I suspect, the vast majority of readers of this silly blog - know that I am extremely fickle in regards to all things gaming.
Fickle, perhaps, isn't even a strong enough word. Perhaps there ought to be a new word created explicitly for use in describing the rapid - nay, almost wildly swinging - wax and wane of my interest in an army, or a game, or even the whole hobby of gaming itself.
Let's call it Swingulairity.
Let's post a few examples of Swingulairity so that the people at home understand this phenomenon.
APRIL 2007 - Disorderlies run a small yet well-enjoyed DDM League. For (five?) weeks we come, play with our mostly-sealed DDM warbands and enjoy the system and the challenges. Rob prepares for a DDM Qualifier Tourney on May 19th.
MAY 2007 - Swingulairity strikes and Rob questions his attendance at the DDM Qualifier Tourney. Instead he's smitten with 40k...which he hasn't played in the past two months or so.
WINTER 2006 - Discussions of how we are going to dominate at Hordes at Gen Con abound. Rob is torn between taking Circle of Oroboros and Legion of Everblight as his weapon of choice.
MAY 2007 - Swingulairity strikes and Rob's interest in Hordes is at its lowest ebb. Why is he even going to Gen Con, anyway?
I'm sure that this post, if read by any Disorderlies of note (and I can think of four offhand who are waiting to rip me to shreds) will generate all sorts of useful commentary, including:
[name redacted] Rob, you're a freaking moron.
and!
[name withheld] We really should just kill you and take your stuff.
With "friends" like these, I really think I should have better life insurance.
Fickle, perhaps, isn't even a strong enough word. Perhaps there ought to be a new word created explicitly for use in describing the rapid - nay, almost wildly swinging - wax and wane of my interest in an army, or a game, or even the whole hobby of gaming itself.
Let's call it Swingulairity.
Let's post a few examples of Swingulairity so that the people at home understand this phenomenon.
APRIL 2007 - Disorderlies run a small yet well-enjoyed DDM League. For (five?) weeks we come, play with our mostly-sealed DDM warbands and enjoy the system and the challenges. Rob prepares for a DDM Qualifier Tourney on May 19th.
MAY 2007 - Swingulairity strikes and Rob questions his attendance at the DDM Qualifier Tourney. Instead he's smitten with 40k...which he hasn't played in the past two months or so.
WINTER 2006 - Discussions of how we are going to dominate at Hordes at Gen Con abound. Rob is torn between taking Circle of Oroboros and Legion of Everblight as his weapon of choice.
MAY 2007 - Swingulairity strikes and Rob's interest in Hordes is at its lowest ebb. Why is he even going to Gen Con, anyway?
I'm sure that this post, if read by any Disorderlies of note (and I can think of four offhand who are waiting to rip me to shreds) will generate all sorts of useful commentary, including:
[name redacted] Rob, you're a freaking moron.
and!
[name withheld] We really should just kill you and take your stuff.
With "friends" like these, I really think I should have better life insurance.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Bet, the second
Rob and I have a wager on the table. The winner of the Battletech game we are going to play in honor of the White Ghosts, Black Death btech event (Northwind Highlander vs. WoB), will earn himself a fresh new copy of the new Jihad Hotspots book.
Friday, February 16, 2007
More GenCon Plans
If anyone believes that Rob A. will maintain his current interest in Hordes and DDM all the way to August, then they have a greater need of a mental health institution than Conte does after a good ole fashion pygmy toss event.
Personally I'm going for some painting education and competition. Plus I'm thinking some Hordes, AT-43, and maybe Confrontation action would be good. I'm planning some blog posts in the Disorderlies Painting Blog to track my plans and the progress on my submissions.
Personally I'm going for some painting education and competition. Plus I'm thinking some Hordes, AT-43, and maybe Confrontation action would be good. I'm planning some blog posts in the Disorderlies Painting Blog to track my plans and the progress on my submissions.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Damn the torpedos - The Disorderlies are going to Gen Con!
Well, some of us are, anyway.
Currently:
Conte
Aaron
Rob F
Tim
and myself.
That's the majority of the core members. That means something, right?
I might, if the mood strikes, the portents are right, the stars aligned, etc etc, post here about the planning and stuff leading up to the momentous occasion.
Or I might not. It's hard to predict, really. I'm not predictable like that.
Nope. Not me.
Anyway, current plans: Hordes and D&D Miniatures.
Plans are subject to change 'cause I'm FICKLE.
You heard me.
Currently:
Conte
Aaron
Rob F
Tim
and myself.
That's the majority of the core members. That means something, right?
I might, if the mood strikes, the portents are right, the stars aligned, etc etc, post here about the planning and stuff leading up to the momentous occasion.
Or I might not. It's hard to predict, really. I'm not predictable like that.
Nope. Not me.
Anyway, current plans: Hordes and D&D Miniatures.
Plans are subject to change 'cause I'm FICKLE.
You heard me.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Disorderlies State of the Union 2007, part 1
Mr. Speaker of the Void, Vice Tyrant, plebeian members of the group, distinguished citizens and even you too John, every year, by custom, we meet here to consider the state of the Disorderlies. This year, we gather in this virtual chamber both to look back at the year that was - and to look forward to the year ahead.
The state of the Disorderlies is, as ever, chaotic, but this year past I think we have been more fractured than ever. The gaming habits of the Disorderlies is breaking out more and more into individual games with less and less crossover. We have a 40k group, a Warhammer group, a Warmachine-Hordes group, a Confrontation group, and a Clicky group - with receding crossover from group to group. I do not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a thing that impacts the scheduling of events heavily, and certainly my wallet even more heavily.
2006 was certainly a year of change. First and foremost was the destruction of the Gaming Mecca that Was and the transformation into the Gaming Mecca that Is. While I had long-pondered a remodeling of Gaming Mecca, the flood of June 2006 forced my hand. Weeks and months of demolition and construction have resulted in the improved Gaming Mecca - still not 100% where I want to be, but clearly an improvement with the new floor, much improved lighting and a lot more organized overall. There is still room to improve, of course, and I would love help in the Gaming Terrain organization and improvement. More on that in another message.
Let's review my stated goals of 2006 and how we failed at them (spectacularly, in a word):
"1. Increased participation in local tournies. The name Disorderlies should be feared and reviled far and wide. Those jokers at Games Comics and Stuff in Glen Burnie shall feel our wrath. The Arena in Eldersburg? A roadbump for us. And so forth."
Wow. This hurts to read. I think I personally did...two tournies all year? Hardly the stuff of legends. And I don't think the name Disorderlies has gotten any play at all. So, good job!
"2. Fresh blood! An influx of good gamers will help us all improve."
We tried the new people route and got one person who thought that bathing was once-a-year-tops. This pretty much ruined it for all other possible entrants.
"3. Painting! I'm the worst offender for this - but the Disorderles WILL be having regular painting/assembling gatherings, where instead of playing and goofing off, we'll be painting/assembling and goofing off."
ALSO abject failure! Three for Three!
In honor of this, I'm not making ANY goals for 2007, beyond the further embarrassment of my goals for 2006. We can DO IT!
The state of the Disorderlies is, as ever, chaotic, but this year past I think we have been more fractured than ever. The gaming habits of the Disorderlies is breaking out more and more into individual games with less and less crossover. We have a 40k group, a Warhammer group, a Warmachine-Hordes group, a Confrontation group, and a Clicky group - with receding crossover from group to group. I do not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a thing that impacts the scheduling of events heavily, and certainly my wallet even more heavily.
2006 was certainly a year of change. First and foremost was the destruction of the Gaming Mecca that Was and the transformation into the Gaming Mecca that Is. While I had long-pondered a remodeling of Gaming Mecca, the flood of June 2006 forced my hand. Weeks and months of demolition and construction have resulted in the improved Gaming Mecca - still not 100% where I want to be, but clearly an improvement with the new floor, much improved lighting and a lot more organized overall. There is still room to improve, of course, and I would love help in the Gaming Terrain organization and improvement. More on that in another message.
Let's review my stated goals of 2006 and how we failed at them (spectacularly, in a word):
"1. Increased participation in local tournies. The name Disorderlies should be feared and reviled far and wide. Those jokers at Games Comics and Stuff in Glen Burnie shall feel our wrath. The Arena in Eldersburg? A roadbump for us. And so forth."
Wow. This hurts to read. I think I personally did...two tournies all year? Hardly the stuff of legends. And I don't think the name Disorderlies has gotten any play at all. So, good job!
"2. Fresh blood! An influx of good gamers will help us all improve."
We tried the new people route and got one person who thought that bathing was once-a-year-tops. This pretty much ruined it for all other possible entrants.
"3. Painting! I'm the worst offender for this - but the Disorderles WILL be having regular painting/assembling gatherings, where instead of playing and goofing off, we'll be painting/assembling and goofing off."
ALSO abject failure! Three for Three!
In honor of this, I'm not making ANY goals for 2007, beyond the further embarrassment of my goals for 2006. We can DO IT!
Thursday, January 04, 2007
AT-43: Operation Damocles
So Rackham has infected me again. DAMN YOU KHAN!!!!!!... uh RACKHAM!!!!!! Got my AT-43 box set delivered to my house late last night, really just enough time for me to open it up, inspect miniatures and glance through the rules.
Miniatures: Most of you have probably heard the Tyrant bitching about the miniatures in his set, Nucleus Cannon broken off the Wraith and one of the UNA troopers missing his upper half. Luckily I had no such problems with my box set. Everything was in good order until I picked up the Wraith and fiddled with it a bit. I’d read on forums that some parts moved on the figs so of course I had to test this out on my own figs. One little test and the Wraith was in two pieces. The upper half and the legs were now separate. Inspecting the joint there appears to be no damage to the plastic only an issue with too little adhesive, particularly in combination with twisting it. No problem a spot of glue and he’ll be in good working order again.
Overall I’m impressed with sculpt quality and paint jobs. Personally I’m more interested in a solid sculpt underneath the paint and decent starting point on the paint jobs. The UNA troopers essentially have three colors on them with a wash and a touch of dry brushing. (plus a few small details like green lenses on the night vision goggles) I am flat out impressed by the Fire Toad. This could be due to my complete inability to paint a mech but the paint lines are clean with decent details. I’ll probably alter the strider with bit more free hand detail but I don’t feel like I have to.
The Therian Storm Golems look like a solid base coat then washed in red. Honestly these look to be on par with most table top quality paint jobs I see at Dream Wizards. The Wraith strider looks to have a similar painting quality. Chances are I’ll be completely re-working the Therians into a new paint scheme they are workable as is but I feel they could be much more developed.
The Game: Operation Damocles is not a whole game. It is an introductory set that provides a starter force for two armies and introduces players to the game mechanics. The intro rule book provides very little fluff. Only that the humans are fighting back against the would be Therian conquers. Indicating two human factions are fighting back as well as other alien races chiming in, beginning with an assault on a mostly inactive Therian planet sized factory ship. The game rules section does not really lay out all the rules for how to play the game. All of the combat rules are described in 2 of the 6 scenarios included with the game. There are no point values included in the game and really the only way to play it right now is with Rackham supported scenarios. So in Operation Damocles you can really play 4 games (the first two really giving you a learning curve. The website has another two scenarios and supposedly Cry Havoc has some more, pretty limited game play out of the box and this is actually my biggest gripe for the game. I have not had a chance to actually try out the game play but it looks more streamlined than confrontation. Should even be suitable to Mass combat and not strictly skirmish
Final thoughts: AT-43 has got some potential. The miniatures show a lot promise, despite being pre-painted. (Yeah I’m a paint purist what’s your point? I don’t care if you don’t want to repaint them) I’m not overjoyed with the playability of the box set only but I think AT-43 has got a chance to offer up some fun games. Price point is kind a steep upfront I managed to get it for $60 through CCG Armory (+10 for more rapid shipping) And that price point for these figures I’m not disappointed as I’m considering both a Therian and UNA force. Should you get it? Well that depend son a couple factors. Are you interested in a UNA and/or a Therian Force for AT-43? If you want both it’s not a bad initial buy to start trying it out and getting the figs in hand (Although there are at least two Disorderlies with the box set now if you want try it out) If you want to wait for the Soviet style force or the aliens you should definitely wait for the main rule book to come out and those figures to start coming out. No reason to buy AT-43 Operation Damocles
Miniatures: Most of you have probably heard the Tyrant bitching about the miniatures in his set, Nucleus Cannon broken off the Wraith and one of the UNA troopers missing his upper half. Luckily I had no such problems with my box set. Everything was in good order until I picked up the Wraith and fiddled with it a bit. I’d read on forums that some parts moved on the figs so of course I had to test this out on my own figs. One little test and the Wraith was in two pieces. The upper half and the legs were now separate. Inspecting the joint there appears to be no damage to the plastic only an issue with too little adhesive, particularly in combination with twisting it. No problem a spot of glue and he’ll be in good working order again.
Overall I’m impressed with sculpt quality and paint jobs. Personally I’m more interested in a solid sculpt underneath the paint and decent starting point on the paint jobs. The UNA troopers essentially have three colors on them with a wash and a touch of dry brushing. (plus a few small details like green lenses on the night vision goggles) I am flat out impressed by the Fire Toad. This could be due to my complete inability to paint a mech but the paint lines are clean with decent details. I’ll probably alter the strider with bit more free hand detail but I don’t feel like I have to.
The Therian Storm Golems look like a solid base coat then washed in red. Honestly these look to be on par with most table top quality paint jobs I see at Dream Wizards. The Wraith strider looks to have a similar painting quality. Chances are I’ll be completely re-working the Therians into a new paint scheme they are workable as is but I feel they could be much more developed.
The Game: Operation Damocles is not a whole game. It is an introductory set that provides a starter force for two armies and introduces players to the game mechanics. The intro rule book provides very little fluff. Only that the humans are fighting back against the would be Therian conquers. Indicating two human factions are fighting back as well as other alien races chiming in, beginning with an assault on a mostly inactive Therian planet sized factory ship. The game rules section does not really lay out all the rules for how to play the game. All of the combat rules are described in 2 of the 6 scenarios included with the game. There are no point values included in the game and really the only way to play it right now is with Rackham supported scenarios. So in Operation Damocles you can really play 4 games (the first two really giving you a learning curve. The website has another two scenarios and supposedly Cry Havoc has some more, pretty limited game play out of the box and this is actually my biggest gripe for the game. I have not had a chance to actually try out the game play but it looks more streamlined than confrontation. Should even be suitable to Mass combat and not strictly skirmish
Final thoughts: AT-43 has got some potential. The miniatures show a lot promise, despite being pre-painted. (Yeah I’m a paint purist what’s your point? I don’t care if you don’t want to repaint them) I’m not overjoyed with the playability of the box set only but I think AT-43 has got a chance to offer up some fun games. Price point is kind a steep upfront I managed to get it for $60 through CCG Armory (+10 for more rapid shipping) And that price point for these figures I’m not disappointed as I’m considering both a Therian and UNA force. Should you get it? Well that depend son a couple factors. Are you interested in a UNA and/or a Therian Force for AT-43? If you want both it’s not a bad initial buy to start trying it out and getting the figs in hand (Although there are at least two Disorderlies with the box set now if you want try it out) If you want to wait for the Soviet style force or the aliens you should definitely wait for the main rule book to come out and those figures to start coming out. No reason to buy AT-43 Operation Damocles
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