Calamari Throne

Lately I've been really getting into my Nerdistry and working on my models. Inso much as to have mostly assembled my Behemoth, mostly re-assembled my Karchev, and begun painting my Blood Bowl team.

I even went out to get some spray paint and basing sand so that I could undercoat them. $41 later from a Games Workshop, I had these two items. Never again. $26 for a can of spray paint? I may as well go to Supercheap Auto. It's the wrong kind of spray paint, but damnit it'll be cheaper, surely. And $15 for 100g of sand? Yeah, I'm going to make these last a bloody long time, and next time I'm going to the beach.

Still, I've gotten into my models and started cleaning off flash and supergluing my fingers together in hopes to put the rest of them together. Luckily, I did! The downside? My Khador Behemoth looks goofy. He's in the proper stance that's advertised on the box, with one leg up... but I don't like that pose.

So I'm going to look for a Rock which will fit underneath the Behemoths foot. I could chase after some greenstuff, but a rock will add that little bit of stability this monstrous pewter figure will need. Probably should've thought about that when I first bought him a year ago.

Which reminds me, I do have to email PP-Frontdesk about a missing Bombard Cannon.

Alongside him is Karchev, the Terrible. Now I tried putting his legs together a long time ago, and eventually wrecked them to a poin that I just got a pair of new legs on order and now I'm using those which have glued together VERy nicely.

Then I had a look at a Plastic Battlebox that I picked up ages ago. I picked it up last year thinking "Yeah, I'll get two more Warjack kits out of it and have a Sorscha to have battlebox games with." When I opened it, I was under the presumption that I'd used one of the Warjack Kits, but I was lucky enough to have two. So I assembled a Marauder, and half assembled the Soon-To-Be Black Ivan which I have waiting for me.

I'm also going to go for a different paint scheme for my Khador. Black Ivan will be the same, and I think I'll paint Torch in the same Scheme, but the others I'm going to try and go for something like this:

Oh look, that's a MERCS Behemoth. You know what would look very similar if it got a rock under it's foot? The Khador Behemoth.

Funny that.

After all these guys, I'm going to paint up my FSA Dystopian Wars Fleet. I've got my battleboxes on hand, and my Dreadnought, Escorts and Destroyers are over at Kelvins since I slept in way too late to dash over there myself to pick them up on Saturday (damn you sleepy times and your voracious ways) so I asked him for the biggest favour of picking them up for me. Owe him a drink, that's for sure.

On Wednesday last week, I received an email asking if I wanted to have a game on Saturday. Liam, a guy I demo'd in January, was going to bring his brother and a few of his mates along. His brother knows how to play, but his mates don't and they wanted to have a demo game to learn.

Legion and Menoth? Easy done. I can borrow from Scotty and I have my own (Unpainted) Menoth Battlebox. Along with that, I have a Khador Battlebox (Naturally), a Cygnar Battlebox, a Cryx Battlebox which I bought for $20 second hand from Fastbreak, and a Trollblood Battlebox. And if I do some digging and Assembling, I can pull out a Skorne Battlebox. And I'm not sure if a Farrow Battlebox is sanctioned, but that's what I'm going to use anyway.

I really should get some generic tokens though.

Actually, that's something that kinda Irks me. Hordes Battleboxes are, as a general rule, 1 Large Warbeast, 2 of the same Light Warbeast. The Legion box is the exception because it has 4 of the same lesser warbeasts. Whereas Warmachine has 1 Large Warjack, then 2 different Light Warjacks, Khador with 2 different heavy Warjacks and Cryx have 1 Heavy and 3 lights, but 1 different from the other.

The point is that Warmachine has that little bit of diversity. More options. So while I have the official battleboxes for Hordes, I'm thinking of swapping out double figures with something of equal points, or theme. So for Skorne, change out a Cyclops Savage for a Basilisk Drake or Krea. Or even for a Cyclops Brute. Or swap out a Trollblood Impaler for a Bouncer. An argus for a Gorax. And one or two Shredders for Stingers or Harriers.

Things like that. /Ramble

Sunday day was a really good day though, and While Liams Brother and mates didn't turn up I still had a good couple of games against Liam. The game came out 2-1 in his favour. The first game was a ferocious assassination of Karchev, with Lord Carver walking around a corner with his feat active and plenty of fury. Karchev was left on 2 damage points (his movement) until a Farrow Brigand came up and tried his luck. He rolled JUST enough to destroy Karchev.

Second game was Epic Irusk versus the same Carver list. I'd all but massacred most of his unit of Brigands, and the Behemoth tore apart one Warhog in melee (WOO!), while he was slowly whittling away at my unit of Winterguard. Then he put Carver a little too far forward, due to his determination of eliminating my Winterguard, and made an easy access for my Great Bears of Gallowswood to charge him. Well, one. The other two were engaged with a Warhog (whom they promptly left very sorry).

Sadly, that didn't kill Carver. Irusk charged with 6 Focus. Not enough to kill him. Kovnik Joe charged him. Knocked him on his arse because he passed a tough roll. 3 Winterguard Figures shot into his face. Two passed Tough rolls and the Standard Bearer had to finish it off. So Win to me.

Last game we swapped factions. I used his pigs, and he used my Khador. Made up his own list, I'd help him with points, and game on. He used the old Witch and out came her Feat turn. I couldn't charge, I couldn't run, and any time I ended my movement within 14 inches of her, I stuffered a severe damage roll.

Carver, with the addition of his speed enhancing spell, walked up and attempted to kill her. She was left on about 7 health of 17 after some abysmal rolls. Then I realised I forgot to use my feat, which grants me extra damage dice. So out of curiosity, I rolled 2 dice to represent the missing damage dice from the two successful hits. The great Opposers, 6 and 1, rolled up. Exactly what I needed to destroy the Old Witch of Khador.

Then on his turn, the Old Witch did what was expected: She moved in with her twin claws, and smacked the living shit out of Carver. And when my first tough roll came up, I failed. Win: Liam.

But all though the game we talked about the next Hordes Expansion: Domination. To which comes the entire point of the post name:

Yeah, the Legion are looking a little Cthulian. But that's cool.

Squad-machine?

Warmachine and Hordes are well known as a Skirmish Game, where small or large armies gather to contest on the field of battle. The said field can be anything, from streets of a city, to a plateau made of a titan, to a valley of concentrated evil.

It's a wonderful game and shows it. The varying points levels can change the game significantly too. And the larger it gets, the more intense the game. They even had to offer a different system for the larger battle games.

But what about scaling in the other direction?

Lately I have been looking at different scaled games, such as squads, to battallions to space fleets, etc etc. But after looking at Mercs, a squad based game, the thought occurred to me what it would be like to have Warmachine/Hordes scaled down to a handful of Solo models?

They pretty much already have a method for it made from Dungeons and Dragons rules. However, I don't think it's very good for, say, a monthly tournament. Five characters to each player, and the organiser would have to check each character sheet for errors or anything fishy going on in there, and the elaborate rules posted and applied, etc etc etc.

So make it a little easier and specific rules to X Models. Like what they've done with Warmachine/Hordes. The difference is that they've balanced out the game according to the format, which is Skirmish battle.

And it's noticeable in it's own way. Models can die in an instant from a stray bullet in this game, which is not wanted in a game so small. A game should endure, give a player a glimmer of hope before the chances get the better of them and steal that hope away and crush it under the sole of it's foot.

Or something like that.

I probed a friend of mine the other night about it, and he said he was absolutely interested in it and we came to the same conclusion: that the damage system is the only problem. His suggestion was to scale the armour and damage accordingly. The rest of the system was fine.

But while my friend and I work out a way to play the format (We may even attempt the Mercs method for a bit), I'm sure Privateer Press will surprise us with something along these lines one day.

Merc Minis part 2 – rules and alternative game options

Now I'm looking over the rules for Mercs. It's interestingly complicated while keeping things to a minimum. You have to get a D10 for each figure, and I'd recommend D4s for tracking health, a few counters and you get a card. The card is used for everything, from movement to firing range, to attack templates, which is very different to the usual Tape Measuring that I've experienced in the past.

I'm quite liking the game and I'm starting to wonder what sort of alternative scenarios one could do. I mean, given a few undead or zombie figures and design a table of a shopping centre and you can make a zombie scenario with a few special rules.

Players start on one end, and a target starts on the other (A civilian they've been hired to save). In the middle of the right and left sides are zombie spawning locations.

Zombies have 1 Blood (HP for those playing at home), one or two move points, and a low melee attack that increases as more are in attack range of a player. Zombies can't Snap.

Weapons don't fire through shelves, and grenades that normally don't do damage (like an ice grenade) simply deal 1 Blood (Damage) to zombies.

Well that's an easy scenario to think of because zombies, like cheese, goes with everything. And because I play Warmachine I can grab some Mechanithralls or Alexia's Risen models to play because they're all 30mm bases too.

If they had rules for 40mm bases, that'd be cool, because then I could get some Brute Thralls and use them for special hard-to-kill targets. Iiinteresting.

Mercs Minis

Now for a little while, I've been wanting to play a table top game on a small scale. I don't mean something like Warmachine, which is small scale Army, but I mean Small Scale Squad.

Mercs Minis seems to be in the right Direction. It's small squads thrown against each other on a cluttered board. I haven't had a good look at the rules, but it may be suiting my tastes, which is that little bit of science fiction that I haven't had much to do with in regards to table top.

Conveniently enough, to buy the entire range of figures and game decks isn't too bad. Now to get the dosh.