Infantry-machine

Regularly on a Sunday, I head down to an LGS and have a casual social day with some of the newer players. Yesterday was a very successful day and I had three games with three different people* and had some really fun matches, playing 3 games using Harkevich. I'm really getting into Harkevich. I think he's my second choice Warcaster in Khador, hands down.

* - Personal rule is that if there's multiple people at an event, play different people each game. Exception is only if there is a game that was far too quick. Eg: I was playing against Stryker one day, he cast Earthquake and drew line of sight to my Warcaster and killed him at the top of second turn.

So First game was against Aiden, AKA Callum. I say AKA because I have been calling him Callum for weeks now, months even. It hasn't bothered him, but it's still that bit embarrassing that I can't remember his name.

Anyway, he was playing the following 35pt list.

• Karchev the Terrible
• - Berserker
• - Berserker
• - Juggernaut
• - Devastator
• Battle Mechaniks (max)
• Man-O-War Shocktroopers

It's a nice little list that intimidates most players. But I was playing a hardy list that was able to take him on.

• Kommander Harkevich, the Iron Wolf
• - Black Ivan
• - Destroyer
• - Destroyer
• Great Bears of Gallowswood
• Graylord Ternion (AKA: The Gaylords that make everyone go POOF! **)
• Koldun Lord
• ** - You're welcome Kel.

It was going really quite well. He had everything he wanted going where he wanted them to go, and killing what he wanted them to kill. Unfortunately, he left Karchev a little too far open.

We had an open playing field, using the 40k Crater Terrain and some of the Ork-style Linear Obstacles. We agreed to the craters being cover while completely within the circles, and just rough terrain otherwise. That didn't quite slow him down very much, except for his Shocktroopers and Battle Mechaniks. Tow did pretty much the rest of the job. I just lobbed out Bombard Attacks left right and centre at Shocktroopers and Battle Mechaniks.

Sidenote: As I was searching for the Crater Templates, I found This rather adorable picture.

But when he had finally moved into charge range of my models, he had left Karchev a little open to attack. So I charged him with some Great Bears, two of whom barely reached him so the last charged the Shocktroopers nearby. They didn't kill him, but they did a good job tearing him up. Otherwise, I think I put a few dents into the rest of his army by popping my feat, firing off at Karchev before charging into whatever. I think Black Ivan charged into Karchev, but simply grazed the paint off with this Claw.

Aiden was panicking a little bit, though. He had ARM 23 Warjacks in his face, and had a large dent put into Karchev. So he tore apart Black Ivan using Sunder, his POW 19 Reach weapon, and I think he killed a Great Bear as well. Shocktroopers tried their best to take down a couple of Great Bears, but Tough rolls kept at least two alive.

Otherwise, he tried his Darndest to tie up my other Destroyers with his Warjacks. The Devastator tied up my White Destroyer, while the Red MK1 Destroyer was facing off a MK2 Juggernaut.

My turn was the final straw and I had a couple of options to kill Karchev. The First was with Great Bears. I worked out the maths, and figured they would put a dent into him, but wouldn't kill him unless I had some good rolls. The other option was the Red Destroyer. He was tied up with the Juggernaut, but that could be easily sorted out by making him stationary with Ice Cage. My unit of Graylords had just enough movement to get two into melee with the Juggernaut, and one standing back who would suffer a -4 to hit a model who is in Melee, but his chances to hit would increase with each Ice Cage, which lowers a models DEF Cumulatively.

So all I needed to hit with the first two attacks were 3+, on 2d6. So I jinxed myself and got Snake Eyes, an Automatic Miss. The other two hit, even the one with a penalty, but I lost hope for a moment. Then I realised the Koldun Lord has the same spell, so he unloaded onto the Juggernaut and made him Stationary.

That guaranteed Big Red's freedom to kill Karchev. But to see what luck I have, I got the Great Bears to make their attacks. Three attacks later, Karchev was Destroyed.

Aidens Moral of the story: Great Bears Rock.


I'll skip the second game, only because I have an interesting thought process to go with it, so that'll come after I tell tale of my Third game.


The third game was a long awaited game against Liam, Aidens older brother. He's just picked up Dr Arkadius and has been hankering a game with a multitude of Warhogs in his list. He also picked up Sturm 'n Drang as well. Since it was later in the day, and he'd been playing Arkadius all day, we had a go at Sturm 'n Drang at 35pts.

• Sturm 'n Drang
• - War Hog
• - War Hog
• - Graymeat (War Hog that I nickname so because he's like a Zombie)
• Bone Grinder (Min)
• Brigands (Max)
• Slaughterhousers

It was a hard fought match. I'm getting rather annoyed with Dig In in general because with fielding the same list as I did before, I can't guarantee something will be destroyed by stray AOE's unless I targetted something in particular.

Well I got a few lucky shots onto the bastards, and a couple shots into a close War Hog, while I approached his wall of Bacon. I wasn't sure which way the fight would go, whether his War Hogs would kick several shades of shit out of me (Which is likely) or he would crumble like a piece of paper.

Turns out I was the paper and he was the Scissors, but somehow my paper mache skills turned it all into a rock. Everyone was in the fray with each other, Graymeat was a handspan away from Harkevich himself, Great Bears in between after running as best they could to prepare to charge next, and then everything everywhere else. Each War hog had faced off against a Destroyer jack of any kind, maxing out their Fury stat to kill said Destroyers, leaving only Black Ivan on half health, and Graymeat was the only one who was left on only 1 fury.

So i thought about it for a moment. What could I do? The only way I could win is if I assassinated Sturm 'n Drang right then and there. I had to think. And think I did. I examined the positionings, my models abilities, his models stats, worked out the maths and the conclusion was: I had to play like I had a pair.

Graylords would use the magical shotguns to clear out some enemies. Particularly a Bone Grinder who was sitting nearby Sturm 'n Drang. Clear out one or two others and I would have a fairly clear line, and I get bonus points for being so awesome and clearing out his infantry except for about 2 models.

Unfortunately... I didn't succeed in killing that Bone Grinder. I did succeed in killing a single Slaughterhouser, after three Magical Spray Attacks. Disappointing, but it was only a bonus. The main thing was Harkevich. He would charge Graymeat and use his Beat-back ability to push Graymeat out of the way of the Greatbears. Why? Because then they can charge Sturm 'n Drang. So I kept all my focus, and used them all for Additional Attacks.

Beat Back: If this model successfully hits a target, the target is pushed 1" directly away from this model. This model may then advance 1".

Six out of seven attacks hit, and the last 1" move was to get out of the way for the Great Bears to Charge Sturm 'n Drang.

Now he had two fury for Transfers, which he planned because he was understandably a little paranoid something will happen. He hadn't seen how I'd murdered Karchev, but he didn't know what kind of luck he'll have. So I charged in with the great bears, and he took the first hit of 8 damage. The second hit was successful, but I rolled a pair of 1's and a two. Don't even think I dented his armour.

The third attack was a little funny. It was a good roll, but he said he was going to transfer to someone other than Graymeat, which I told him he couldn't because the other two War Hogs were on Full Fury, so he couldn't. So it went on to Graymeat, who was already well tenderized from Harkevich's Mechano-mace and a Great Bear the turn before. With a transfer, it killed Graymeat and left Sturm 'n Drang on 3 HP. With one last attack, the final blow was struck and I was surprised to find that Sturm 'n Drang don't have tough. And neither do Bone Grinders.

All in all, it was a fun game with a surprisingly bullshit assassination.


Lastly, we revert back a match to my game with Glenn. Now Glenn hasn't been playing for very long. I met him though Monsterpocalypse, and since that hasn't made a massive revival in recent times, he is slowly moving into Warmachine through a Retribution list using Lord Arcanist Ossyan. I was somewhat excited since I haven't really played against many Retribution Armies before.

The Slightly odd thing was that he didn't have any Warjacks. He was designing the list based on Ossyan's theme, so he had gotten a few of his Themed lists stuff, but the Warjacks he had ordered hadn't come through so he played with what he had at 25pts.

• Lord Arcanist Ossyan
• Houseguard Halberdiers (max)
• Houseguard Riflemen (Max)
• - Officer and Standard
• Houseguard Riflemen (Max)
• - Officer and Standard

I had to adjust my list appropriately, and it took me a little while to really figure out what I wanted. Though I was disappointed to find I'm one point short of having a Behemoth in the list, I made do and got myself comfortable.

• Kommander Harkevich
• - Black Ivan
• - Destroyer
• - Destroyer
• Koldun Lord

Just like the first game, we played amongst the Craters and walls, using Aiden as the Third Party Terrain Lord, and we adjusted the rules so that the Craters weren't rough terrain any more, but it was still required that you must be completely within to gain Cover.

It didn't come into much use, though. Two units of Riflemen with CRA are easily going to shoot a large chunk out of Harkevich. Which they did. Twice. And killled him.

It made me think of the days of Infantry-machine, where a Warjack heavy list would have a hard time against an Infantry list. Is that still true now? Not really. I'd taken out a large chunk of his Halberdiers with AOE's that actually hit, and some good dice rolls on my Blast Damage, but that was about it. I'm not sure why i was so focused on the Halberdiers when the Riflemen were the more dangerous of the lot, both with CRA +11. It's a pretty hard hit, especially with his rather good dice rolls, plus Ossyans feat which gives an addtional damage die on Ranged Damage Rolls.

But is Infantry-machine still promenant in Warmachine and Hordes? Hordes are obliged to put Warbeasts in, or else they won't have a spell pool. But there's nothing like that in Warmachine. Warjacks are an option, not a necessity, so you can go right on ahead and play with a bucketload of Winterguard if you want. Whether it'll be effective as a list, who knows.

I don't field armies without Warjacks simply because I like Warjacks. They're what brought me into the game. But I could field a Warjack-less army if I wanted. The question just remains is "Do I even want to try?"

Consolidating Blog Rolls

So I got tired of having three different blogrolls, one for my Wargaming Stuff, one for my Monpoc Stuff (Which is all but dead) and my normal one here, so I figured I'd import the 115 posts from the other two into here, make some modifications and publish them. There'll be a LOT more Game Warning Posts.

Apologies in advance if I'm on your RSS feed or Google Reader Feed that says "Hey, you got a bucketload of posts you haven't read." They probably won't interest you anyway, unless you're one of my nerdy friends.

Word Verification: Gaign

Uniqueness

One of the cool things about Warmachine and Hordes is that there is a flavour to the game that takes the game to new Levels. You have unique units, and solos, and unique themes that some units follow by. Then on top of that, you can get Characters who may follow a theme, but have a uniqueness to themselves. Warjacks come in all different shapes and sizes. Few are to a particular theme, but as a general rule they are all unique.

Character Warjacks started off simply emphasizing a particular Warjack. Beast-09 is a character Juggernaut, for example. Drago is a character Berserker. Lately, the character Warjacks started getting more unique layouts. Black Ivan is a character Destroyer, however rather than the Executioner Axe, he has a special set of claws. Torch is a character Decimator, but replace the cannon with a flamethrower-mounted Open Fist with a spike.

The rules are all very cool and all, there is no denying how awesome it is to have a Warjack in melee with a Torch to catch a few guys up the back. Same thing with Black Ivan, it's awesome to have a Warjack that has a base Defence of 12. No seriously, it's awesome.

The models themselves are where I actually have a problem. Beast-09 and Drago received unique Models. Every feature about those models screams "I am who I am and you better remember that". They dominate the field leaving everyone feeling they have been struck by gods.

If you turn to the Warjacks next to them, Black Ivan and Torch... and you get two Basic Warjacks with some unique features. Replaced arms, bobs stuck on their shoulders, and a head to match. They don't have things hanging around their neck, or writing over their cowling. They don't even have the Khadoran Anvil over the engine

Business wise, I know that the expenses of making an entirely unique warjack would be phenomenal with having to create moulds which only last a certain number of times and cost an arm and a leg to make, and then no guarantee of sale makes it difficult. Whereas the plastic kits are cheaply made, and then smaller pieces are made of metal and slot on to the figures.

What does Black Ivan look like though? Does he look as plain as a normal Destroyer? Or does he actually have inscriptions across the bulk of his body that point from what regiment of the Khadoran army he was brought up from under the guidance of Harkevich?

What about Torch? Is he really a Juggernaut with a Buzzsaw and a Flamethrower? Or is he an Assault Kommando with armour tempered to withstand Fire and Acid, and able to throw smoke grenades to disrupt enemy attack?

It makes me wonder how different these impressive Warjacks would be if they were just a little more... Unique.

Of Trolls and Talismans

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game, is a Board Game that many a nerd who has played it GROANS at the very mention of it. "It takes so long!" They cry, "It will take us late into the night!" Which is a lie, we started at 6:30 or 7pm and the three of us finished at 9! We being Scotty, Corey, Paul and I.

Last week we pulled out Talisman to play. I'm not sure what edition it is, but I imagine its old since the dust on the cover of the box is so thick that you need to chisel it off. We followed one house rule which was that players chose a random character. The character cards were shuffled and they draw from a random spot, or it's just drawn from the top of the deck.

Last week we drew random cards and came up thusly.

• Medway - Assassin
• Paul - Prophetess
• Corey - Sorceress
• Scott - Priest

I had absolutely horrible luck, with my stuff being stolen by bandits, and being kicked seven ways from sunday from the least likely of all things, the Wild Boar, the Weakest monster in the game. The worst part is that it happened twice. It's more humiliating than Corey who had his arse kicked by the Farmer every time he landed on the Tavern. Every. Time.

This week, we all ran through the character cards and as soon as I saw him, I had to play him. The Troll. He's the strongest character, but he's about as bright as those glow in the dark constellation stickers you put on your ceiling (or want to, if you haven't done so already). Actually, that might be giving him a little bit of credit.

The other special feature of him is that he is always safe in the Crags. Normally, you can get lost or you can fight a terrible spirit that found you, or you can gain a Strength when a Barbarian leads you out, and any of these can happen depending on what you roll on a d6. But not the Troll!

So he's a very VERY straight forward character. Later revisions allowed him to gain a Life if he rolls a 6, but that's unlikely since he isn't interested in anything except "bashing sum wun wiff his stikk".

Which he did. He bashed quite a few things that most others wouldn't have normally bashed, and benefitted from it. The poor fella did draw a Craft 10 Demon, which is impossible for him to beat with his Craft 1... But I had a cross. "So I'z got da kross and smished da demon." Then I immediately doubled my craft.

"I have now found that the reason the apple fell on my head is because the tree is actually attacking me."

I picked up a few different things, one of the biggest things that brought me some of the POWER I held was the Amulet, which meant I couldn't cast spells but I couldn't be targetted by them.

Except for a Witch. Who cursed me and turned me into a Toad. Goddamn witch. So that meant I dropped all my items, including the Amulet, the Cross and the Flask of Water, and all my Gold (I think i was on like 5 at that point) and then I just hopped about just like a toad does. There was a font of Wisdom, luckily, and so I doubled my craft again. A Toad with a Craft of 2 is pretty impressive. Especially when it goes up against a Craft 4 Monster and Ties with it. But when I turned back into a Troll the extra craft didn't roll over, so didn't quadruple my Craft, sadly.

Sidenote - To fight someone, you get the relative stat (Strength or Craft) and roll a d6. If you equal, you tie. If you roll higher, they suffer lose a Life. If you roll lower, you lose a Life.

Now as I mentioned, when you get turned into a Toad you drop all your Gold and Objects on the spot that you get turned into a Toad. So that means it's available for other players to pick up stuff. So during the 3 turns that I am a Toad, my stuff is up for grabs. I'm also easily killable, but nobody was in the habit of trying to kill anyone.

Except me. And I had incentive too. Paul, who was playing the Elf, found a way to sneak over and pick up my stuff by telepoting through Woods Spaces. And when he got there, he convinced the fucking Witch to Pay him to take my stuff of her hands, the greedy bastard . But luckily for me, he hadn't had a good run. He was down to 1 Life, so all I needed to do was conk him on the noggin and that's the end of that. So as a vengeful Troll with about 8 or 9 Strength to his name, he hunted down that Fucking Elf and got back his Objects, his Gold plus Interest (Paul had a significant amount of luck with regards to Gold) and then trundled off satisfied with himself that there was one more squished Elf in the world.

After that, I was a train of havoc going all the way up to the Crown of Command to "Kill da little peeple". It was funny though, I drew the Hermit just before I went into the inner level, and conveniently enough he was on the tile I landed on and he gave me a Talisman to let me get to the Crown of Command.

"Choo Choo! Take Dat, Dwarf! Take Dat, Warrior! I got da Powah!"

Sonic Generations

I think I may have mentioned that I'm a fan of Sonic. He has been a childhood hero and remains to be. I think I have a photo somewhere that has me in my favourite Sonic Hoodie, and one of my various Sonic Shirts at the Mana Bar while playing Sonic on the Wii.

The only disappointing era's of Sonic games was really the 2006 Self-titled version. Anything after the Mega Drive until that point, I haven't had the chance to play, so to be fair I'm not going to say bad things about them. I have Sonic Adventure now on my PS3 since they made a port for it, but I just haven't put the effort into playing it yet.

Instead, I've been playing Sonic 4 which I have yet to really complete. It's difficult, and the controls are noticably different than the traditional games that I've played, though the system is meant to be much the same. What's closer to the classic is Sonic Fan Remix. And what else is likable about it is that it's got a different, but more appealing art style, really detailed and different than Sonic 4.

But I'm not really here to talk about those versions of Sonic the Hedgehog. I want to talk about Sonic Generations.

The Idea behind Sonic Generations is a combination of older and newer formats of the Sonic Platformers, the classic 2D and the newer 3D format. In turn, they follow the theme of various different levels from those same generations, picking Zones from the various games and then giving both a 2D and a 3D version of the levels with Original layouts.

One of the funny gimmicks of the game is that both generations of Sonic are able to meet each other. Old Sonic was a blue hedgehog with black pupils and no iris, and didn't really speak much. Or at all. New Sonic, after he defeated one of the Robotniks in the Archie Comics, changed to have Green Iris and Gold Buckles on his shoes, and he's taller.

I picked it up yesterday and I plugged it into the PS3 and invited mum to watch it with me. And to boot, we flicked it over to 3D to see what it would be like with the effects. What we did know of the game was that it was a bit... quick off the mark. If you performed the Spin Dash technique, you would have missed a portion of the level due to the speed he was travelling. Classic Sonic was quick, but this is ridiculous.

The 3D just made it more intense, with the detailed levels and the various colours and speeds, it was just driving Mum and I nuts. I don't think I'm going to load up the 3D again except for a special event when i want to show someone.

The Gameplay system they use is very reminiscent of the classic Sonic that I played many moons ago, with various different additions, such as Skill sets for Sonic to apply to himself (First two of which were to land on his feet whenever he gets damaged, and to have the rings stay around for 10 seconds), and challenge modes for the different levels. So there's plenty to unlock since the game encapsulates the better part of the entire franchise, and also includes special feature such as Art, Music and Videos.

I'm very excited to get into this game. It's my favourite character, with elements from all generations, and... well yeah. That's about it, really.

Manning Up

Every so often I actually go out. Not go to a mates place to play games, but actually out to do something Normal. Like go out to a play. Which is what I did on Saturday night, to see the World Premiere of the final Felafel play: How To Be A Man. I put on a nice shirt, my glasses so I could see, and made the trek from Roma Street Station where I stepped off the Bus.

Now, I get a little nervous around crowds. It's just the way I am. So just before I went to the Theatre I stopped off at the Alfie Hotel (aka: Hotel LA; aka: Lord Alfred Hotel) and grabbed a cider and sculled that down to ease the nerves. Then I wandered up to the theatre to collect my ticket.

As I waited for the lovely girl to print my ticket, as I left mine at work on friday, I was approached by an unfamiliar face who had approached me knowing full well who I am. Turns out it was Abe, one of the Burgers who had turned up for the same play as I did! He introduced himself and offered me a drink, which I happily accepted because I'm an alcoholic and still a little nervous.

It was annoying that I had so many nerves that night. I got hand fed from Greg and met Dan from Smart Enough 2 Know Better and even though I listen to his shrill garbling and Gregs Barotone (at least I reckon he has the deeper voice) and I should know that he's a very casual sort of guy, I got too nervous and ended up making a bit of an arse of myself in front of him. Insert Facepalm Image of your choice here. Actually, use this.

Anyway, I had a nice chat with many of the Burgers, and even the Burger King himself, until everyone had to clamber into the Theatre itself wearing a fake Moustache that Simon Bedak was handing out like lollies. I was i seat A9, front row centre aisle. It was a good seat, I thought. It would give me a wonderful view of the play. I could see things without having to squint at the little details. The small entertaining things that can really make a play better.

Now after saying that to myself, had a wonderful introduction to the city of "Bong Kok". If you go see the play, you'll understand very early on what I'm talking about.

The stage itself was amazing. set in the back yard of a shoddy old sharehouse that even had the family safe (One of the panels made from a cut up Beer Carton), it had all the feel of a scungy house full of rats, cockroaches and nests of feral possums living in the tall grass. And the traditional Sharehouse Couch sat amongst it.

The entire play was magnificent. I can't say anything bad about it. Even Bong Kok. It was a massive shock to the system, but it was still hilarious. Girl Clumsy directed a masterpiece, scripted by Simon Bedak, and written by John Birmingham and Dirk Flinthart.

But the main thing that the show taught me was how to Man Up (funny that). And pretty much all of the Burgers suggested and agreed with starting a donation run to get Jenny to Australia. A JenCon Oz Fund. Everyone wanted to put forward for her to come here, whether it means she'll be spending lots of money here, or even just using the contributions to keep her here longer (Which is probably a better use of the contributions, actually).

I'm currently in discussions with Jenny about organising it, so we'll let everyone know when it's all ready. I'm thinking a Paypal thing?

Campaigning for fun

Now a month or two ago, I said about how I was going to play Gears of War 3 with my friends, playing through the wonderful campaign as a Four-player Cooperative rather than running around by myself. It's a lot more fun, especially if we all start off at the same point, then we all experience the same thing, achieve the same goals, save the same damsels, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

When I got my new Xbox and downloaded my Gamer profile, I found that I'm missing achievements for certain games, like Halo 3 and Gears of War 2. I ran through Gears of War 2 again alone because I didn't think of inviting anyone. But it wasn't as fun as with a friend. Not to say it wasn't a fun game, it was still as awesome as I remember it the first time, but I know it's better when you have someone playing with you, whether it's through the internet or sitting next to you laughing their heads off as you decapitate a couple of people with a hydraulic powered crossbow.

So in preparation to playing through the Halo 3 Campaign, I've asked my friends to gauge who would be interested in playing the Halo 3 Campaign with me. I've asked Scott and his only apprehension is the control scheme being so different to the Halo Reach scheme. It's rather different, but I'm thinking of adjusting my own settings to use the Green Thumb control scheme for all Halos upward of Halo 3.

Other games that I want to play Coop are Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One. I want to get that game and play with Scotty. I know he's waiting for me, but it's just a matter of picking up the game so we can start. Also, Portal 2 has an update for it's Cooperative Campaign, so we're going to get in on that at some point when I mention it to Scotty.



Next year, when Borderlands 2 comes out, we're going to dive into that one as well through the Xbox. Scotty was planning on getting it for PC, however it was put down to general consensus that we would all play on the Xbox. Which brings me to the subject of Cross-Platform gaming, but that's another blogpost that I've drafted away and haven't bothered to type in since I started it.

I was thinking of making a Blog for our escapades through whatever games together, somewhere we could organise times to play and such, but that seems a bit much. Though we could apply it as well for our Wargaming as well, if we decided to use as such if we were doing a campaign amongst ourselves. That would actually be really cool if we were, but we're not.

Actually I thought about running the old campaigns for Warmachine amongst friends, but haven't sat down with a copy of Escalation or Apotheosis and worked it out for MKII Settings. I don't know if there are any very good conversions out there, or even if there's one released from PPress, but I'm going to give it a crack. I'm really wanting to go with "Point Cost / 2, Rounded up" to determine Victory Points.

So wondering about whether or not I should do the blog or not. It wouldn't be interesting, I think it would mostly have notices for what and when we're next playing, unless we do a battle report for each of our campaign games, but I dunno about that.

Now I've completely lost track of what I was talking about.