Well, it was a sort of an unexpected turn of events when me, my companion and her parents had a go with Scrabble.
This blog thing is actually starting to affect things in my life, since I was hesitant to play Scrabble, because I knew I would feel obliged to write a thing or two about it, heh!
Anyway, the older people scored 50-70 points, and us, the youngsters scored 100-110 points. Here someone could do some interesting analysis, but maybe one really can't, just from one game.
Oh well, this must be enough. How exciting gaming write-up can be made from a game like Scrabble, after all?
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Different shapes of the Blood Moon
Wow, what a play with words!
Ahem.
I finished painting all the miniatures for Talisman from the Blood Moon expansion set.
There they are, the Werewolf who stalks the players, and then Grave Robber, Doomsayer and Vampire Hunter, which you can actually play.
I don't really have a lot to say here.
With the few games we played Blood Moon seemed like one of the most interesting and, well, expanding small box expansion for Talisman. Day/Night mechanics works nicely and affects the game play a lot. Werewolf is encountered a little bit more than the Grim Reaper, so it's kind of nice to have him around. Even better if you got both of them around.
Ahem.
I finished painting all the miniatures for Talisman from the Blood Moon expansion set.
There they are, the Werewolf who stalks the players, and then Grave Robber, Doomsayer and Vampire Hunter, which you can actually play.
I don't really have a lot to say here.
With the few games we played Blood Moon seemed like one of the most interesting and, well, expanding small box expansion for Talisman. Day/Night mechanics works nicely and affects the game play a lot. Werewolf is encountered a little bit more than the Grim Reaper, so it's kind of nice to have him around. Even better if you got both of them around.
So harsh. Twice. (Talisman)
Phew. Past few times have been quite a write.
But now, these two games of Talisman are the last of all kinds of gaming practiced on my visit to Kuhmo.
First of these games was a three player game of "super-talisman". We were using the Dragon Lords expansion, the Grim Reaper and Werewolf. All combined, the game took hours and hours of playing time. About four and half hours with three players who all had a lot of earlier experience on this game.
Characters drawn were the Dragon Rider, Troll and Dark Cultist.
Because it's been long time already since this game was played, I don't remember the sweetest details. Except one, that wasn't so sweet for me and my Troll.
However, when playing with the Draconic Lords, getting a dragon mount for Dragon Rider was a lot easier. Though, if we're completely honest, the dragons that came up from different Lord's decks were rather... tough. Not many of those seemed to be below Strenght or Craft 7, and plenty of enemies higher than that.
In this game Dragon Rider found Pharaoh's Crown, and once she got the mount, her offensive potential outside of plain stat points was impressive. She was rolling 2 dice for her attacks, picking the highest, and she could force enemies to roll their dice again once per turn.
Dark Cultist was a nasty character, too. Looked like enemies were purposefully avoiding her, but still she got straight stat rises from her special skills plenty of times.
And then... our lovable troll. That's what he was.
Early in game he found Horse and Cart. On a side-journey to Dungeon he found Lone Dwarf as his companion. Imagine that... a troll and a lonely dwarf, riding on a cart, facing adventures! This mental image became even more hilarious when a treasure hunter joined the Troll.
There was even a curious little story. This small but joyous party was journeying in some grassy plains, when some insane Strengh 9 dragon came and beat up the Troll. Grim reality of Talisman opened Treasure Hunter's eyes, so she fled away.
Then, only a couple of turns later the Lone Dwarf was sacrificed in the Varthrax war council. I'm sure Troll misunderstood what the warlords meant with all their fancy words...
After this the Troll was lonely, and without any outside guidance. At least three Craft 1 monsters tricked him, two of those being some kind of Pumpkin Heads.
Ah well, still Troll was the first character who tried to enter Inner Region. However, all characters had the statistics for that about the same time. Dragon Rider was inside the Dungeon, trying to beat Lord of Darkness. First the Troll entered Inner Region, and a turn later Dark Cultist did that too.
Then Troll failed the strenght test in the crypts and was teleported back to Portal of Power, and then he encountered the space. Card drawn was Talismonger. That ridiculously named card caused Troll to lose ALL strenght gained during game, which meant 7 strenght points at the moment. No worries! Fate was used to re-roll. Didn't help, though, as result was still the same. That was a serious blow under Troll's belt.
Dark Cultist then failed the same test, though I don't remember if she tried to go through mines or crypt. Result was, however, that she was teleported to Warlock's Cave.
And a turn after that Dragon Rider flew to encounter Lord of Darkness and beat him at least by 8 after she doubled her own strenght with a spell.
Draconic Lord itself was a piece of cake for her. Victory for Dragon Rider!
I decided to take a picture of the playing board, if it shows anything. There's plenty of action there, though, with all the draconic tokens, all the characters, werewolf and the grim reaper.
Game 2:
Next day we played another one of a three player Talisman.
One of our players needed to catch a train, so we had to play less heavy on the additional stuff.
We used Dragon Tower as inner region, and Werewolf.
Characters drawn were Doomsayer, Fire Wizard and Chivalric Knight.
This set of characters was rather exciting for me - none of these characters had been played earlier! What a major boost to my statistics on Numbers-page! Ahem... let's continue...
Chivalric Knight voiced a couple of questions if he was, in fact, chivalric at all. Only when other characters fought a battle they should have won in any case, he did appear to offer his help. But when Doomsayer accidentally stumbled upon Infernal Legion at night (Equal to Strenght 11 enemy), he was quick to say that he won't help. Soon after he met a random stranger who turned his alignment to Neutral.
A little later he rescued a princess, but he forcefully kept her as a hostage, claiming to "protect her", though two main factors for decisions where he had to sacrifice a follower were that she was worth some gold and could give free healing in the castle. Long live the code of honor!
Doomsayer lived a steady life, and neither of his abilities felt too powerful. I really like Doomsayer, as he is a perfect example how good characters can be designed without them actually being way over the top.
And then... Fire Wizard. He sure was a good character, but when Chivalric Knight got a Vengeance Hex as a quest reward, he was turned into a toad.
As his first turn as a toad he stumbled upon Craft 9 Vampire Prince.
How sad is that? A Vampire Prince goes and sucks the blood out of a slimy toad? Almost sounds like Interview with the Vampire...
Well, finally after that short trek as an amphibian, Fire Wizard got his game going. Right up until he stumbled upon a Sacrificial Stone. This card kind of goes over the space, and whenever you enter that space you draw one adventure card. If it is a dragon, your character is killed. And guess what? A dragon came right up.
You can guess who was playing the Fire Wizard. I was.
Next I draw Vampire Hunter as my character, but she was in a real hurry now, because Fire Wizard bit the dust about in the middle of the game. Both other characters had gained quite a bit of strenght and craft, though still not enough to challenge the King.
There was one curious thing about this game, however. About 75% of monsters drawn were Craft-fighters. Troll would have had a difficult time there.
I don't remember how and when it happened, but Doomsayer happened to rise his statistics beyond a sort of "breaking point", where losing a fight was somewhat of a rarity. Once he got a Talisman he went to climb the stairs in Inner Region. He had a nasty head start, but after some rounds it looked like Chivalric Knight could try and win the same style as Dragon Rider in last game. Go and beat Lord of Darkness and fly straight to the Crown of Command.
However, Lord of Darkness had learned to fight since last game. He rolled 6 and Knight something like 1 or 2, which came out as a stand-off.
So, in the end there was no-one to challenge Doomsayer. He got to the Crown of Command, but he actually had to fight. There was a slight chance of getting a stand-off or even a defeat.
However, the Dragon King was smashed to bits like a porcelain doll. Victory for Doomsayer!
But now, these two games of Talisman are the last of all kinds of gaming practiced on my visit to Kuhmo.
First of these games was a three player game of "super-talisman". We were using the Dragon Lords expansion, the Grim Reaper and Werewolf. All combined, the game took hours and hours of playing time. About four and half hours with three players who all had a lot of earlier experience on this game.
Characters drawn were the Dragon Rider, Troll and Dark Cultist.
Because it's been long time already since this game was played, I don't remember the sweetest details. Except one, that wasn't so sweet for me and my Troll.
However, when playing with the Draconic Lords, getting a dragon mount for Dragon Rider was a lot easier. Though, if we're completely honest, the dragons that came up from different Lord's decks were rather... tough. Not many of those seemed to be below Strenght or Craft 7, and plenty of enemies higher than that.
In this game Dragon Rider found Pharaoh's Crown, and once she got the mount, her offensive potential outside of plain stat points was impressive. She was rolling 2 dice for her attacks, picking the highest, and she could force enemies to roll their dice again once per turn.
Dark Cultist was a nasty character, too. Looked like enemies were purposefully avoiding her, but still she got straight stat rises from her special skills plenty of times.
And then... our lovable troll. That's what he was.
Early in game he found Horse and Cart. On a side-journey to Dungeon he found Lone Dwarf as his companion. Imagine that... a troll and a lonely dwarf, riding on a cart, facing adventures! This mental image became even more hilarious when a treasure hunter joined the Troll.
There was even a curious little story. This small but joyous party was journeying in some grassy plains, when some insane Strengh 9 dragon came and beat up the Troll. Grim reality of Talisman opened Treasure Hunter's eyes, so she fled away.
Then, only a couple of turns later the Lone Dwarf was sacrificed in the Varthrax war council. I'm sure Troll misunderstood what the warlords meant with all their fancy words...
After this the Troll was lonely, and without any outside guidance. At least three Craft 1 monsters tricked him, two of those being some kind of Pumpkin Heads.
Ah well, still Troll was the first character who tried to enter Inner Region. However, all characters had the statistics for that about the same time. Dragon Rider was inside the Dungeon, trying to beat Lord of Darkness. First the Troll entered Inner Region, and a turn later Dark Cultist did that too.
Then Troll failed the strenght test in the crypts and was teleported back to Portal of Power, and then he encountered the space. Card drawn was Talismonger. That ridiculously named card caused Troll to lose ALL strenght gained during game, which meant 7 strenght points at the moment. No worries! Fate was used to re-roll. Didn't help, though, as result was still the same. That was a serious blow under Troll's belt.
Dark Cultist then failed the same test, though I don't remember if she tried to go through mines or crypt. Result was, however, that she was teleported to Warlock's Cave.
And a turn after that Dragon Rider flew to encounter Lord of Darkness and beat him at least by 8 after she doubled her own strenght with a spell.
Draconic Lord itself was a piece of cake for her. Victory for Dragon Rider!
I decided to take a picture of the playing board, if it shows anything. There's plenty of action there, though, with all the draconic tokens, all the characters, werewolf and the grim reaper.
Game 2:
Next day we played another one of a three player Talisman.
One of our players needed to catch a train, so we had to play less heavy on the additional stuff.
We used Dragon Tower as inner region, and Werewolf.
Characters drawn were Doomsayer, Fire Wizard and Chivalric Knight.
This set of characters was rather exciting for me - none of these characters had been played earlier! What a major boost to my statistics on Numbers-page! Ahem... let's continue...
Chivalric Knight voiced a couple of questions if he was, in fact, chivalric at all. Only when other characters fought a battle they should have won in any case, he did appear to offer his help. But when Doomsayer accidentally stumbled upon Infernal Legion at night (Equal to Strenght 11 enemy), he was quick to say that he won't help. Soon after he met a random stranger who turned his alignment to Neutral.
A little later he rescued a princess, but he forcefully kept her as a hostage, claiming to "protect her", though two main factors for decisions where he had to sacrifice a follower were that she was worth some gold and could give free healing in the castle. Long live the code of honor!
Doomsayer lived a steady life, and neither of his abilities felt too powerful. I really like Doomsayer, as he is a perfect example how good characters can be designed without them actually being way over the top.
And then... Fire Wizard. He sure was a good character, but when Chivalric Knight got a Vengeance Hex as a quest reward, he was turned into a toad.
As his first turn as a toad he stumbled upon Craft 9 Vampire Prince.
How sad is that? A Vampire Prince goes and sucks the blood out of a slimy toad? Almost sounds like Interview with the Vampire...
Well, finally after that short trek as an amphibian, Fire Wizard got his game going. Right up until he stumbled upon a Sacrificial Stone. This card kind of goes over the space, and whenever you enter that space you draw one adventure card. If it is a dragon, your character is killed. And guess what? A dragon came right up.
You can guess who was playing the Fire Wizard. I was.
Next I draw Vampire Hunter as my character, but she was in a real hurry now, because Fire Wizard bit the dust about in the middle of the game. Both other characters had gained quite a bit of strenght and craft, though still not enough to challenge the King.
There was one curious thing about this game, however. About 75% of monsters drawn were Craft-fighters. Troll would have had a difficult time there.
I don't remember how and when it happened, but Doomsayer happened to rise his statistics beyond a sort of "breaking point", where losing a fight was somewhat of a rarity. Once he got a Talisman he went to climb the stairs in Inner Region. He had a nasty head start, but after some rounds it looked like Chivalric Knight could try and win the same style as Dragon Rider in last game. Go and beat Lord of Darkness and fly straight to the Crown of Command.
However, Lord of Darkness had learned to fight since last game. He rolled 6 and Knight something like 1 or 2, which came out as a stand-off.
So, in the end there was no-one to challenge Doomsayer. He got to the Crown of Command, but he actually had to fight. There was a slight chance of getting a stand-off or even a defeat.
However, the Dragon King was smashed to bits like a porcelain doll. Victory for Doomsayer!
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
A Game of Fire
During my trip I got in a game of Warmachine, too.
We played a 35 point game with Killbox artifice.
I had brought my Skorne with me, because I wanted to get more games in for epic Hexeris.
This was my list:
Epic Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan (bonded to Hexeris)
- Basilisk Drake
- Cyclops Shaman
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Minimum unit of Paingiver Beasthandlers
Venator Flayer Cannon
Extoller Soulward
Opponent had:
Feora, Priestess of the Flame
- Avatar of Menoth (represented by the Crusader)
- Dervish (Devout acts as a stunt for Dervish)
- Repenter
Knights Exemplar
Daughters of the Flame (Umm... Slightly disgraceful proxy here. They're the Bone Grinders + Feralgeist. Later we remembered that they were a 6 member unit, though.)
Holy Zealots + Monolith Bearer (swamp gobbers wanted to throw some bombs here...)
Reclaimer (if Rupert can play a bag pipe when running, sure he can claim a couple of protectorate souls too, right?)
I think I won the starting roll. It's been a couple of days now, so my memory is starting to fail on these little details now. How sad.
First picture is from the end of opponents first turn. Ashen Veil was put up on the Swordsmen and Ignite was on Dervish.
It was my turn next, and I was thinking if I should use Hexeris' feat for a lame "alpha strike" against enemy infantry. I quit upkeeping Ashen Veil and ran two swordsmen as far as possible. Now, I had woefully overestimated how far I could reach with 12" run. I wanted to fry a couple of Choir members too with Ashes to Ashes, but it wasn't viable at all. However, all but two Daughters were wiped out by the spell later. Hexeris also put Ashen Veil back on Swordsmen that turn. He did not use his feat.
Opponent then was going to start lobbing bombs on my Bronzeback. Counter charge probably saved a lot of damage points, because now it took only about 6 points in from lucky rolls. Zealots put up Greater Destiny, though. Repenter fried a few Praetorians, but most notable it did 11 points in to Hexeris, and set him on fire. Damage was transfered to Basilisk Drake, though.
The good stuff here was that Avatar had been accidentally blocked by re-grouping Daughters. I was thinking I got a good spot to use my feat now.
However.
I was way too excited to use my feat. I completely screwed up my activation order. I activated and riled only Cyclops Shaman to full fury when I activated Hexeris. What could have been a well-thought feat turn for epic Hexeris came out as a single Ashes to Ashes that missed its target.
Quick change of plans, then. I was planning on filling up Reclaimer with souls and then using Hexeris' feat a little later so Hexeris wouldn't be without fury to leach the turn after.
Well, I decided to shoot Reclaimer with Flayer cannon who had gotten Eyeless Sight from Extoller Soulward.
Misses, misses all.
Luckily Basilisk Drake (who was healed a little by beast handlers) fried three knights exemplar and the reclaimer too.
Swordsmen did some damage to already damaged Repenter, but despite their best efforts, the jack was still standing.
And then it was opponents turn.
Feora advances and uses her feat. Only Hexeris (already on fire), Flayer Cannon, Extoller and two Cetrati were away from it.
Cetrati were a good counter to Zealots, though neither unit could get away from either. Cetrati had too few attacks to get rid of Zealots, and Zealots had too puny strenght.
Knights Exemplar killed Basilisk Drake, and Dervish charged the Bronzeback. Dervish somehow managed to make two misses during whole course of attacks, which saved a lot of Bronzeback. After all, every attacl was coming in with P+S 17.
Avatar used Gaze of Menoth and ran forward, getting in just about everything except Hexeris.
But now was the time for Lord Arbiter's feat turn.
And what a turn it was!
First, three shots from Flayer Cannon and a hit from Cataphract Cetrati to Dervish wreck the warjack. I must admit, the damage rolls were all rather excessive.
This meant Bronzeback didn't even need to suffer a free strike. It charged the Avatar, but a little bit of a pity was the fact that it wasn't enraged. Feated fires from Feora killed two beast handlers, which triggered a command check, which was failed.
Well, Grab & Smash knocked down Avatar eventually, which brought its armor down to more manageable levels. But still, Bronzeback couldn't tear it down.
Extoller Soulward with a boosted damage roll could, however. For two points that solo truly offers awesome finishing blow on big targets, as well as good utility even if you don't pack any ancestral guardians in your forces.
Then Cyclops Shaman took an aimed shot at Repenter and left it with only one or two boxes left.
Hexeris activated and shot Ashes to Ashes to Repenter and scored full 6 extra hits. Three exemplars, Feora and a zealot and the monolith bearer got a pow 10 hit.
First two exemplars died to unboosted damage rolls, so I decided to boost the damage on last knight and Repenter. All destroyed or wrecked.
I don't remember what I did with the extra fury from use of feat, but getting rid of all the warjacks was what counted.
Opponent then decided to get rid of Bronzeback. Feora came and beat the titan down, so Hexeris was left with only one Fury 3 beast. Feora had already taken some damage in, but it was still difficult to say who was actually winning.
The two remaining Daughters of Flame rushed to flank my forces, but two amazing hit rolls later they were pincushions for Flayer Cannon's needles. About Flayer Cannon - this model has rarely been totally crap investment. And when it has been, it's been due to my brain, not its rules. In this game it performed overly well.
Anyway, Cyclops Shaman tried skewer Feora, but it was only a bad attempt.
Next turn, Feora cast Engine of Destruction again and got rid of Hexeris' last warbeast. Tough times ahead.
Aaaand I manage to make an idiot out of me.
Cetrati charge Feora, as does Extoller Soulward and last remaining beast handler. Since only one choir member was standing besides Feora at this moment, I probably had the game in. All of this brings her down to 11 hit boxes remaining.
Why, oh why did I ever move Hexeris that close to Feora?!
There was a real possibility of me losing the game there, and because I did something so foolish I probably should have deserved to lose.
Feora cast Engine of Destruction and advanced to melee with Hexeris. This created free strikes from two Cetrati, beast handler and the Extoller.
First I roll for Cetratis. Both hit.
Despite P+S 11 + 4d6 versus Feora's armor of 21, first does one damage point and second does two damage points. Beast Handler misses completely.
But Extoller rolls something like 5,4,4. With POW 17, thanks to Engine of Destruction. Sweet dreams, Priestess of the Flame.
Hero of the Game must be Extoller Soulward.
That little, melee-weaponless solo made finishing blows to both enemy warcaster and Avatar of Menoth.
We played a 35 point game with Killbox artifice.
I had brought my Skorne with me, because I wanted to get more games in for epic Hexeris.
This was my list:
Epic Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan (bonded to Hexeris)
- Basilisk Drake
- Cyclops Shaman
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Minimum unit of Paingiver Beasthandlers
Venator Flayer Cannon
Extoller Soulward
Opponent had:
Feora, Priestess of the Flame
- Avatar of Menoth (represented by the Crusader)
- Dervish (Devout acts as a stunt for Dervish)
- Repenter
Knights Exemplar
Daughters of the Flame (Umm... Slightly disgraceful proxy here. They're the Bone Grinders + Feralgeist. Later we remembered that they were a 6 member unit, though.)
Holy Zealots + Monolith Bearer (swamp gobbers wanted to throw some bombs here...)
Reclaimer (if Rupert can play a bag pipe when running, sure he can claim a couple of protectorate souls too, right?)
I think I won the starting roll. It's been a couple of days now, so my memory is starting to fail on these little details now. How sad.
First picture is from the end of opponents first turn. Ashen Veil was put up on the Swordsmen and Ignite was on Dervish.
It was my turn next, and I was thinking if I should use Hexeris' feat for a lame "alpha strike" against enemy infantry. I quit upkeeping Ashen Veil and ran two swordsmen as far as possible. Now, I had woefully overestimated how far I could reach with 12" run. I wanted to fry a couple of Choir members too with Ashes to Ashes, but it wasn't viable at all. However, all but two Daughters were wiped out by the spell later. Hexeris also put Ashen Veil back on Swordsmen that turn. He did not use his feat.
Opponent then was going to start lobbing bombs on my Bronzeback. Counter charge probably saved a lot of damage points, because now it took only about 6 points in from lucky rolls. Zealots put up Greater Destiny, though. Repenter fried a few Praetorians, but most notable it did 11 points in to Hexeris, and set him on fire. Damage was transfered to Basilisk Drake, though.
The good stuff here was that Avatar had been accidentally blocked by re-grouping Daughters. I was thinking I got a good spot to use my feat now.
However.
I was way too excited to use my feat. I completely screwed up my activation order. I activated and riled only Cyclops Shaman to full fury when I activated Hexeris. What could have been a well-thought feat turn for epic Hexeris came out as a single Ashes to Ashes that missed its target.
Quick change of plans, then. I was planning on filling up Reclaimer with souls and then using Hexeris' feat a little later so Hexeris wouldn't be without fury to leach the turn after.
Well, I decided to shoot Reclaimer with Flayer cannon who had gotten Eyeless Sight from Extoller Soulward.
Misses, misses all.
Luckily Basilisk Drake (who was healed a little by beast handlers) fried three knights exemplar and the reclaimer too.
Swordsmen did some damage to already damaged Repenter, but despite their best efforts, the jack was still standing.
And then it was opponents turn.
Feora advances and uses her feat. Only Hexeris (already on fire), Flayer Cannon, Extoller and two Cetrati were away from it.
Cetrati were a good counter to Zealots, though neither unit could get away from either. Cetrati had too few attacks to get rid of Zealots, and Zealots had too puny strenght.
Knights Exemplar killed Basilisk Drake, and Dervish charged the Bronzeback. Dervish somehow managed to make two misses during whole course of attacks, which saved a lot of Bronzeback. After all, every attacl was coming in with P+S 17.
Avatar used Gaze of Menoth and ran forward, getting in just about everything except Hexeris.
But now was the time for Lord Arbiter's feat turn.
And what a turn it was!
First, three shots from Flayer Cannon and a hit from Cataphract Cetrati to Dervish wreck the warjack. I must admit, the damage rolls were all rather excessive.
This meant Bronzeback didn't even need to suffer a free strike. It charged the Avatar, but a little bit of a pity was the fact that it wasn't enraged. Feated fires from Feora killed two beast handlers, which triggered a command check, which was failed.
Well, Grab & Smash knocked down Avatar eventually, which brought its armor down to more manageable levels. But still, Bronzeback couldn't tear it down.
Extoller Soulward with a boosted damage roll could, however. For two points that solo truly offers awesome finishing blow on big targets, as well as good utility even if you don't pack any ancestral guardians in your forces.
Then Cyclops Shaman took an aimed shot at Repenter and left it with only one or two boxes left.
Hexeris activated and shot Ashes to Ashes to Repenter and scored full 6 extra hits. Three exemplars, Feora and a zealot and the monolith bearer got a pow 10 hit.
First two exemplars died to unboosted damage rolls, so I decided to boost the damage on last knight and Repenter. All destroyed or wrecked.
I don't remember what I did with the extra fury from use of feat, but getting rid of all the warjacks was what counted.
Opponent then decided to get rid of Bronzeback. Feora came and beat the titan down, so Hexeris was left with only one Fury 3 beast. Feora had already taken some damage in, but it was still difficult to say who was actually winning.
The two remaining Daughters of Flame rushed to flank my forces, but two amazing hit rolls later they were pincushions for Flayer Cannon's needles. About Flayer Cannon - this model has rarely been totally crap investment. And when it has been, it's been due to my brain, not its rules. In this game it performed overly well.
Anyway, Cyclops Shaman tried skewer Feora, but it was only a bad attempt.
Next turn, Feora cast Engine of Destruction again and got rid of Hexeris' last warbeast. Tough times ahead.
Aaaand I manage to make an idiot out of me.
Cetrati charge Feora, as does Extoller Soulward and last remaining beast handler. Since only one choir member was standing besides Feora at this moment, I probably had the game in. All of this brings her down to 11 hit boxes remaining.
Why, oh why did I ever move Hexeris that close to Feora?!
There was a real possibility of me losing the game there, and because I did something so foolish I probably should have deserved to lose.
Feora cast Engine of Destruction and advanced to melee with Hexeris. This created free strikes from two Cetrati, beast handler and the Extoller.
First I roll for Cetratis. Both hit.
Despite P+S 11 + 4d6 versus Feora's armor of 21, first does one damage point and second does two damage points. Beast Handler misses completely.
But Extoller rolls something like 5,4,4. With POW 17, thanks to Engine of Destruction. Sweet dreams, Priestess of the Flame.
Hero of the Game must be Extoller Soulward.
That little, melee-weaponless solo made finishing blows to both enemy warcaster and Avatar of Menoth.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Duel of the evil brainwashers (Talisman)
During my trip to Kuhmo I played total number of three games of Talisman.
All three were played with The Dragon -expansion and Blood Moon's day/night mechanic.
Two games were played with three people, but I'm writing up now the game with only two players.
We didn't use the Werewolf, because as with earlier experiences in two player games, rarely moving "non-player characters" don't affect things much.
Inner Region was the Dragon Tower.
Characters drawn were the Sorceress and Magus; both evil manipulators of the mind.
Both of them quickly got a few raises in strenght & craft, so I thought we would have a quick game. Sorceress' Craft soared up in an amazing fashion, but Magus was left behind on the true statistics rises. He did find good items, but at one point he was left for a long time at just one life, trying only to survive. A couple of desperate battles were rather exciting, when Magus lost and needed to roll for 4,5 or 6 for Armour or die. Without any fate he still managed to do those rolls.
However, once Sorceress hit Craft 10 (her Strenght was still 3, though, but she had a couple of items to make up for that), Magus used the powers of his newly found Rod of Ruin and lowered her back to Craft 8.
She had collected quite a few dragon scales and was abusing them to "farm" the dragon lord's decks. Only problem game from Varthrax, because, well, she still had quite puny strenght and no red scales.
She would have probably been able to challenge all draconic lord except for Grilipus, but she was missing both Talisman and enough Strenght to beat up Sentinel.
Lake of Visions, with three somewhat easy quests, seemed like a good option then to get both Talisman and a way to middle region. However, just before reaching the lake, she picked up False Grail, which denied any Warlock Quests. Sweet.
She continued going through Grilipus' and Cadorus' decks, when she found Grilipus' altar or something like that. At that moment Grilipus was the Dragon King, which meant she was able to add up to 3 to praying score. And this is the story how Sorceress got her Talisman.
Now, her Craft was so high that she decided to aim for killing Eagle King and jumping to middle region and starting ascend the stairs of Dragon Tower.
Well, to add an insult to the multiple injuries of Magus, Sorceress found a stranger who was willing to exchange any dragon scales to Strenght or Craft points. She had, what, 9 scales then, and after a couple of exchanges her Craft was 13 and Strenght at least 6.
Needless to say, Eagle King screamed like a horrified little monkey when he saw the Sorceress approach. Sorceress was suprisingly dropped straight to Portal of Power.
Now, she needed to draw a card.
Eyrie Vanguard had placed a few Highland card on top of regular adventure deck.
Card drawn was the dreaded Lodestone. She had to drop two really good items, Rage Talon (from Eagle King) and Pharaoh's Crown.
So she was carrying a Talisman, Lodestone and False Grail. So, her loot was not really the best equipment around...
It seemed like an easy victory for Sorceress then. Magus, however, followed close by and made Eagle King lose his trusty mount, the Dreadwing.
Speeding with it Magus tried to gain some craft and/or strenght points in the Dungeon, and there was ugly possibility of him stealing victory from Sorceress by beating Lord of Darkness well enough and jumping straight to Crown of Command. However, luck was not in for him. Magus rolled something like 1 or 2, and Lord of Darkness rolled 6. It was a stand-off, so Magus was thrown back into the Crags.
Sorceress finally stepped down... or up? to challenge the Dragon King in its very own domain. We did not even need to roll the dice, because there couldn't even be a stand-off even if dragon rolled 6 and Sorceress rolled 1. So, a victory for Sorceress!
Saving Grace (Chronicles)
I've been testing Chronicles, the tabletop skirmish RPG system extensively as a solo project for a long time now, and I'm also writing an adventure book for the system. After first few overly detailed tests I haven't written anything here, because I didn't really feel I was playing the game, just testing it, alone.
However, yesterday that changed.
I played the adventure book A New Start with a friend. We both had two adventurers - my team being Zweihander with Charging Smash and Cleric with Smiting Words. My friend had Flame Wizard with Improved Fireball and Geomancer with Elemental Strike around. This was an excellent team for testing purposes - Zweihander and Geomancer being two of the newest additions to adventurer possibilities.
We played with Warmachine miniatures, though I have actually bought a couple of models to be used as adventurers later. But they will have to wait for a paintjob.
First, a thing that you cannot feel when playing as solo on Vassal, is the size of the gaming area. The size of 24" x 24" is actually excellent gaming area for a game of this size. Movement scores and "costly" running make are in good balance - smallish table size cannot be run over and across too easily.
A quick word on all scenarios played:
First Battle Scene (goblin ambush on road):
Scene was still very easy, but I still think it should be that way, because it is there to teach game rules. We decided to play enemy phases so that we discussed what is probably the best (and vaguely realistic) way for goblins to act.
Second battle scene (goblins base camp in the forest ruins):
Here we had first real challenge. A few critical hits by goblins and a couple of good Fire damage rolls from goblin shaman against Zweihander forced Cleric to go and heal him. While Cleric was healing Zweihander, goblin archers scored lucky hits to the only unengaged adventurer - Flame Wizard. He fell unconscious in the battle.
Cleric saved up skill points then to have enough for Saving Grace - an ability to prevent injuries from falling down in battle. This had the impact that Cleric could not either heal nor effectively battle the goblins. He could, however, effectively tie goblins up.
After the Battle Scene a new nice feature came up that just isn't there when testing mechanics as a solo project - trading between players.
We had decided to collect our loot separately so that my group had their own treasury and my friends group had their own. Any items found were randomised between the group, and my Zweihander made a good roll and found the Copper Amulet from this scenario. We agreed on a price and so the item was given to the spellcasters, who really needed the hit point boost.
Next, then, the Giant Centipede was a major resource depletion. We were lucky enough that no adventurer fell unconscious, but we had something like below 5 combined skill points available for whole party.
When we arrived at the underground ritual, we were swarmed by the goblins inside and on two occasions the time counter was down to only 1 turn remaining. Eventually both Flame Wizard and Geomancer were using Defense -action every round engaged by three goblins and both had only very few hit points remaining. It was "kind of" exciting, but there sure was a little problem at least in the Geomancer's melee potential. In the end, however, we finished the scenario succesfully, and even got both of the rubies out of goblins' statue. This, however, made us spent just about all remaining skill points (even when we rolled a couple of Blue Potions from treasure table).
Last Battle Scene (the goblin attack on the village) felt a little bland, still... It could be we had started losing impetus a little, since we had been playing the whole adventure book in just one go.
Goblins were still very easy, and captain from the village single-handedly killed half of the goblins, Zweihander chiming in as a good second candidate. Cleric without skillpoints and Geomancer with only a couple of skill points ran to engage archers and were then using defense -action or attacked the goblins, but that was a damn slow progress right there.
All in all, we had good time and both saw the potential in the system.
However, yesterday that changed.
I played the adventure book A New Start with a friend. We both had two adventurers - my team being Zweihander with Charging Smash and Cleric with Smiting Words. My friend had Flame Wizard with Improved Fireball and Geomancer with Elemental Strike around. This was an excellent team for testing purposes - Zweihander and Geomancer being two of the newest additions to adventurer possibilities.
We played with Warmachine miniatures, though I have actually bought a couple of models to be used as adventurers later. But they will have to wait for a paintjob.
First, a thing that you cannot feel when playing as solo on Vassal, is the size of the gaming area. The size of 24" x 24" is actually excellent gaming area for a game of this size. Movement scores and "costly" running make are in good balance - smallish table size cannot be run over and across too easily.
A quick word on all scenarios played:
First Battle Scene (goblin ambush on road):
Scene was still very easy, but I still think it should be that way, because it is there to teach game rules. We decided to play enemy phases so that we discussed what is probably the best (and vaguely realistic) way for goblins to act.
Second battle scene (goblins base camp in the forest ruins):
Here we had first real challenge. A few critical hits by goblins and a couple of good Fire damage rolls from goblin shaman against Zweihander forced Cleric to go and heal him. While Cleric was healing Zweihander, goblin archers scored lucky hits to the only unengaged adventurer - Flame Wizard. He fell unconscious in the battle.
Cleric saved up skill points then to have enough for Saving Grace - an ability to prevent injuries from falling down in battle. This had the impact that Cleric could not either heal nor effectively battle the goblins. He could, however, effectively tie goblins up.
After the Battle Scene a new nice feature came up that just isn't there when testing mechanics as a solo project - trading between players.
We had decided to collect our loot separately so that my group had their own treasury and my friends group had their own. Any items found were randomised between the group, and my Zweihander made a good roll and found the Copper Amulet from this scenario. We agreed on a price and so the item was given to the spellcasters, who really needed the hit point boost.
Next, then, the Giant Centipede was a major resource depletion. We were lucky enough that no adventurer fell unconscious, but we had something like below 5 combined skill points available for whole party.
When we arrived at the underground ritual, we were swarmed by the goblins inside and on two occasions the time counter was down to only 1 turn remaining. Eventually both Flame Wizard and Geomancer were using Defense -action every round engaged by three goblins and both had only very few hit points remaining. It was "kind of" exciting, but there sure was a little problem at least in the Geomancer's melee potential. In the end, however, we finished the scenario succesfully, and even got both of the rubies out of goblins' statue. This, however, made us spent just about all remaining skill points (even when we rolled a couple of Blue Potions from treasure table).
Last Battle Scene (the goblin attack on the village) felt a little bland, still... It could be we had started losing impetus a little, since we had been playing the whole adventure book in just one go.
Goblins were still very easy, and captain from the village single-handedly killed half of the goblins, Zweihander chiming in as a good second candidate. Cleric without skillpoints and Geomancer with only a couple of skill points ran to engage archers and were then using defense -action or attacked the goblins, but that was a damn slow progress right there.
All in all, we had good time and both saw the potential in the system.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Stories from the blackest train (Ticket to Ride)
Yesterday we played two games of original version of Ticket to Ride.
We had four players around. Two of them had never played the game before, and I have played Ticket to Ride only once before.
Still everyone caught up with the game mechanics quite soon, so I guess you can say it's a game that is easy to learn. About mastering it I cannot say anything, yet.
Last time I played Ticket to Ride it was with three players, and now, even with only one player more there was a lot tougher competition over railway connections. The "pro player" in our group said that the game is best when played by maximum number of players, and I can believe that. It would even further escalate the disappearance of viable railroads.
The first game ended in victory for the most experienced player with final scoreboard being: 134, 124, 117 and 103. In this particular game the 10 points you get from longest continous railroad made the victor. If anyone of the top 3 would have gotten it, it would've changed the winner.
In the second game everyone had gotten a little bit better understanding of the game and competition was tougher.
And this time victory didn't favor the bold: game ended when our veteran still needed to make two easy connections. This resulted in about 30 negative points instead of over 40 additional points.
Final scoreboard was 116, 105, 105, 38.
We had four players around. Two of them had never played the game before, and I have played Ticket to Ride only once before.
Still everyone caught up with the game mechanics quite soon, so I guess you can say it's a game that is easy to learn. About mastering it I cannot say anything, yet.
Last time I played Ticket to Ride it was with three players, and now, even with only one player more there was a lot tougher competition over railway connections. The "pro player" in our group said that the game is best when played by maximum number of players, and I can believe that. It would even further escalate the disappearance of viable railroads.
The first game ended in victory for the most experienced player with final scoreboard being: 134, 124, 117 and 103. In this particular game the 10 points you get from longest continous railroad made the victor. If anyone of the top 3 would have gotten it, it would've changed the winner.
In the second game everyone had gotten a little bit better understanding of the game and competition was tougher.
And this time victory didn't favor the bold: game ended when our veteran still needed to make two easy connections. This resulted in about 30 negative points instead of over 40 additional points.
Final scoreboard was 116, 105, 105, 38.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Summer games
Oh no.
This blog is starting to look like a big neurosis or obsessive-compulsory disorder.
Yesterday I came to Kajaani and met up some friends there. We had a couple of hours to spend, and we ended playing some of these summer time outdoor games with four players.
They're not miniature games nor are they board games or anything like that, but still, they're not computer games either. So somehow I feel obliged to list them up here.
So, please bear with me, heh.
First we played two games of Mölkky. It was first time ever me playing this game. You throw a wooden block against some other block a few metres away and score points on how you make them fall.
Since the style you throw the wooden block is free, I invented my own. Somehow it felt easier to throw the block like it was a pub dart. Other players kinda laughed at it, but it soon became clear that if I tried any other way, I missed completely and horribly anything I tried to aim at.
In first game I came second, and in last game I had a shared victory. Thanks to my dart technique.
Then we played Croquet.
Aw hell, it feels so awkward to write up these things, but I'm sure that in the long run I will be grateful for the data I've left behind!
And about the Croquet, yeah. It was fun, too, since we played on a field with somewhat tall grass. Needless to say, even the best of hits rolled the ball only so far.
I guess with these experiences I can say the same I've been saying for a long time now. With right party, it is possible to enjoy almost any game.
My personal "almost" being games that test either reaction speed or where you must act too fast or talk a lot. I dislike actual person-to-person social interaction in games. But to each their own.
This blog is starting to look like a big neurosis or obsessive-compulsory disorder.
Yesterday I came to Kajaani and met up some friends there. We had a couple of hours to spend, and we ended playing some of these summer time outdoor games with four players.
They're not miniature games nor are they board games or anything like that, but still, they're not computer games either. So somehow I feel obliged to list them up here.
So, please bear with me, heh.
First we played two games of Mölkky. It was first time ever me playing this game. You throw a wooden block against some other block a few metres away and score points on how you make them fall.
Since the style you throw the wooden block is free, I invented my own. Somehow it felt easier to throw the block like it was a pub dart. Other players kinda laughed at it, but it soon became clear that if I tried any other way, I missed completely and horribly anything I tried to aim at.
In first game I came second, and in last game I had a shared victory. Thanks to my dart technique.
Then we played Croquet.
Aw hell, it feels so awkward to write up these things, but I'm sure that in the long run I will be grateful for the data I've left behind!
And about the Croquet, yeah. It was fun, too, since we played on a field with somewhat tall grass. Needless to say, even the best of hits rolled the ball only so far.
I guess with these experiences I can say the same I've been saying for a long time now. With right party, it is possible to enjoy almost any game.
My personal "almost" being games that test either reaction speed or where you must act too fast or talk a lot. I dislike actual person-to-person social interaction in games. But to each their own.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Protectorate has better Ashes to Ashes than Skorne does
Yesterday, however, I played Warmachine.
It's been a busy week playing games.
I played two 35 point games with Skorne. I recently finished painting Epic Hexeris, and I wanted to try how he plays. In both games I was facing Protectorate of Menoth.
My list in first game was:
Lord Arbiter Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan
- Basilisk Drake
- Cyclops Shaman
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Paingiver Beasthandlers
Flayer Cannon
Thrullg
Extoller Soulward
Ancestral Guardian
Feralgeist
And opponent was playing:
Severius (the nonepic version, cannot remember his title right now)
- Crusader
- Revenger
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Exemplar Errant Seneschal
Vassal of Menoth
Hierophant
We were playing a scenario from Steamroller 2012 scenario pack. Scenario was called Restoration. What we found out is that you really need to have those cards at your disposal or interactive object abilities will be just... forgotten.
Opponent won starting roll, but decided to give me the start.
First picture is taken from the end of opponents first turn. There isn't much to tell, except that Exemplar Errants got Defenders Ward on them and Praetorian Swordsmen sport with Ashen Veil. Also, Hexeris' bonded beast is the Bronzeback.
Then I had a super-lame feat turn.
Bronzeback rushed forward, and all warbeasts riled themselves to the maximum. Hexeris then cast Black Spot on Temple Flameguard, and with last remaining three Fury he casts Hellfire on a flameguard. Then he uses his feat and is on full fury again. Then he casts Ashes to Ashes on a flameguard and spawns two extra bolts. Objective soaks up one of them, and one fails to kill. That's a whopping 3 models killed during a feat turn. Temple flameguarders.
Ah well. Then it was opponents turn to punish my puny actions.
Charging exemplar errants and errant seneschal nearly, but not quite, killed Cyclops Shaman and Basilisk Drake, and put a good dent on Bronzeback too. By the way, because of the mighty tusks Bronzeback is facing 180 degrees the opposite from where it stands. Because without reach you cannot engage it from the front, really.
Opponent also put Ashes to Ashes on the Basilisk Drake and killed feralgeist and some other few models with it. I think opponent rolled 5 extra attacks from Ashes to Ashes. I guess that Protectorate still has better Ashes to Ashes anyway.
Now, then came my turn, which proved to be ridiculously brutal.
First, Bronzeback puts on its own animus and kills something like 5 models, beat-backing as it brutalised everything in its path. This healed basilisk Drake and cyclops shaman to fully functional.
Shaman then kicks the errant seneschal down, and basilisk Drake moves forward and sprays not once, but twice thanks to Black Spot on Temple Flameguard.
Thrullg launches itself against Revenger and disrupts the 'jack with its tentacles. Push effect causes it not to be able to make its claw attacks against the bastion, but its main goal was accomplished.
Flayer Cannon kills about 3 models though it rolled only two attacks for itself. Need to thank Black Spot for that.
Temple Flameguard failed their command check. It was something like 16 models down in one turn, plus a disrupted arc node and a fleeing unit. Opponent was quite disheartened by this, which is quite understandable, but we still decided to play one more round.
It wasn't so good for opponent, though. Crusader missed the charge on Bronzeback by only about a quarter of an inch. Immolations from Severius and Revenger's efforts killed Basilisk Drake and exemplar bastions killed the cthulhu monster. Well, I still needed to get rid of two tough warjacks on my next turn.
Bronzeback beat the snot out of Crusader with overwhelming dice rolls. That was to be expected, though.
But then a few charging Praetorian Swordmen with combo-strikes and Ancestral Guardian wrecked the Revenger too with several 5,5,6 damage rolls. Protectorate raised the white flag, then, and hoped for some mercy from their conquerors. The fools... Victory for Skorne! And what a glorious start for previously unplayed warlock!
Game 2:
I played the second game with almost same list, except I changed Thrullg for Totem Hunter.
Opponent had following list:
High Executioner Reznik
- Crusader
- Revenger
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Paladin of the Order of Wall
Hierophant
Vassal of Menoth
This time I won the starting roll and went first. We switched table sides because we were too lazy to set up a new map.
First picture is from the end of my second turn, and this time we were playing only caster kill scenario with Killbox artifice.
Ashen Veil is again on Praetorian Swordsmen. Ignite is on Exemplar Errants, and Iron Aggression is on Crusader.
Opponent has next turn, where errants charge basilisk drake. Drake is left with three hit boxes.
Opponent almost makes a short order from my Bronzeback by using Perdition. However, the boosted attack roll misses, thanks to concealment given by Ashen Veil. Revenger fails to kill Totem Hunter (who is left with one hit box after the attack, heh.)
Then it was my turn, and I decided to kill Reznik. Especially when basilisk drake was burned to death from a fire continous effect that was inflicted upon it by a lucky critical roll by errants.
Cyclops shaman took an aiming bonus and shot the errant engaging Bronzeback, and riled itself to three fury.
Beast Handlers enraged the Bronzeback, who then put on its own animus and charged Crusader (who had Enliven on).
Now, I should have slammed the jack instead I think, but I didn't. Anyway, Bronzeback charged Crusader and moved 1". Then it attacked a nearby Bastion and killed it in one go. That was actually pretty damn bad thing. There was no chance any more that I could train wreck the Titan to the face of Reznik. So I tried to position it away from other bastions' reach, but I failed.
I still wanted to use Hexeris' feat, which didn't actually do anything else except put on Black Spot on Temple Flameguard and kill about three errants.
Then I seem to have forgotten to take a picture from opponents next turn, but I'll give a brief summary what happened.
Believe it or not, but Bronzeback was killed. Crusader and Reznik cut it up and had a good grill party.
On my turn Extoller Soulward attacked Crusader and almost destroyed it. Hexeris tried to damage it too with a Hellfire. The one and only attack Bronzeback did to it destroyed it's cortex from column 4, so that was at least 12 points in. Though Extoller rolled it's POW 17 attack something like 4,5,6. It was left with one damage box in Movement system. Praetorian Swordsman came and auto-plinked that one point.
Situation was... interesting. I do believe that I could have won by attrition at this pointm possibly, since Revenger was in really bad shape and beyond that Protectorate had only a handful of infantry models standing. At least I could have had a chance to win the game. However, I had brought Hexeris too much forward.
Because this is what happened:
Vassal of Menoth... the pesky Vassal of Menoth shot down one beast handler with Arcane Bolt. Then Reznik cast Engine of Destruction on himself and charged the paingivers. Unsuprisingly, charge target died and Hexeris was now on Reznik's line of sight. He was, though, within 2" of Ashen Veil too.
Somehow Reznik managed to roll two misses against Hexeris.
Third attack was made with a boosted attack roll and a boosted damage roll. Hexeris had taken some damage in because of my stupid choices in wanting to use every possible fury on Hexeris' feat turn.
Well, Reznik butchers Hexeris with just one attack. And that's it. It's a pity, since he could have bought only one more attack.
I guess I went too cocky from my first victory with epic Hexeris and karma thought it best to bring my self-condifence back to normal boundaries.
It's been a busy week playing games.
I played two 35 point games with Skorne. I recently finished painting Epic Hexeris, and I wanted to try how he plays. In both games I was facing Protectorate of Menoth.
My list in first game was:
Lord Arbiter Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan
- Basilisk Drake
- Cyclops Shaman
Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Paingiver Beasthandlers
Flayer Cannon
Thrullg
Extoller Soulward
Ancestral Guardian
Feralgeist
And opponent was playing:
Severius (the nonepic version, cannot remember his title right now)
- Crusader
- Revenger
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Exemplar Errant Seneschal
Vassal of Menoth
Hierophant
We were playing a scenario from Steamroller 2012 scenario pack. Scenario was called Restoration. What we found out is that you really need to have those cards at your disposal or interactive object abilities will be just... forgotten.
Opponent won starting roll, but decided to give me the start.
First picture is taken from the end of opponents first turn. There isn't much to tell, except that Exemplar Errants got Defenders Ward on them and Praetorian Swordsmen sport with Ashen Veil. Also, Hexeris' bonded beast is the Bronzeback.
Then I had a super-lame feat turn.
Bronzeback rushed forward, and all warbeasts riled themselves to the maximum. Hexeris then cast Black Spot on Temple Flameguard, and with last remaining three Fury he casts Hellfire on a flameguard. Then he uses his feat and is on full fury again. Then he casts Ashes to Ashes on a flameguard and spawns two extra bolts. Objective soaks up one of them, and one fails to kill. That's a whopping 3 models killed during a feat turn. Temple flameguarders.
Ah well. Then it was opponents turn to punish my puny actions.
Charging exemplar errants and errant seneschal nearly, but not quite, killed Cyclops Shaman and Basilisk Drake, and put a good dent on Bronzeback too. By the way, because of the mighty tusks Bronzeback is facing 180 degrees the opposite from where it stands. Because without reach you cannot engage it from the front, really.
Opponent also put Ashes to Ashes on the Basilisk Drake and killed feralgeist and some other few models with it. I think opponent rolled 5 extra attacks from Ashes to Ashes. I guess that Protectorate still has better Ashes to Ashes anyway.
Now, then came my turn, which proved to be ridiculously brutal.
First, Bronzeback puts on its own animus and kills something like 5 models, beat-backing as it brutalised everything in its path. This healed basilisk Drake and cyclops shaman to fully functional.
Shaman then kicks the errant seneschal down, and basilisk Drake moves forward and sprays not once, but twice thanks to Black Spot on Temple Flameguard.
Thrullg launches itself against Revenger and disrupts the 'jack with its tentacles. Push effect causes it not to be able to make its claw attacks against the bastion, but its main goal was accomplished.
Flayer Cannon kills about 3 models though it rolled only two attacks for itself. Need to thank Black Spot for that.
Temple Flameguard failed their command check. It was something like 16 models down in one turn, plus a disrupted arc node and a fleeing unit. Opponent was quite disheartened by this, which is quite understandable, but we still decided to play one more round.
It wasn't so good for opponent, though. Crusader missed the charge on Bronzeback by only about a quarter of an inch. Immolations from Severius and Revenger's efforts killed Basilisk Drake and exemplar bastions killed the cthulhu monster. Well, I still needed to get rid of two tough warjacks on my next turn.
Bronzeback beat the snot out of Crusader with overwhelming dice rolls. That was to be expected, though.
But then a few charging Praetorian Swordmen with combo-strikes and Ancestral Guardian wrecked the Revenger too with several 5,5,6 damage rolls. Protectorate raised the white flag, then, and hoped for some mercy from their conquerors. The fools... Victory for Skorne! And what a glorious start for previously unplayed warlock!
Game 2:
I played the second game with almost same list, except I changed Thrullg for Totem Hunter.
Opponent had following list:
High Executioner Reznik
- Crusader
- Revenger
Maximum unit of Temple Flameguard + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Choir of Menoth
Minimum unit of Exemplar Bastions
Minimum unit of Exemplar Errants + Unit Attachment
Paladin of the Order of Wall
Hierophant
Vassal of Menoth
This time I won the starting roll and went first. We switched table sides because we were too lazy to set up a new map.
First picture is from the end of my second turn, and this time we were playing only caster kill scenario with Killbox artifice.
Ashen Veil is again on Praetorian Swordsmen. Ignite is on Exemplar Errants, and Iron Aggression is on Crusader.
Opponent has next turn, where errants charge basilisk drake. Drake is left with three hit boxes.
Opponent almost makes a short order from my Bronzeback by using Perdition. However, the boosted attack roll misses, thanks to concealment given by Ashen Veil. Revenger fails to kill Totem Hunter (who is left with one hit box after the attack, heh.)
Then it was my turn, and I decided to kill Reznik. Especially when basilisk drake was burned to death from a fire continous effect that was inflicted upon it by a lucky critical roll by errants.
Cyclops shaman took an aiming bonus and shot the errant engaging Bronzeback, and riled itself to three fury.
Beast Handlers enraged the Bronzeback, who then put on its own animus and charged Crusader (who had Enliven on).
Now, I should have slammed the jack instead I think, but I didn't. Anyway, Bronzeback charged Crusader and moved 1". Then it attacked a nearby Bastion and killed it in one go. That was actually pretty damn bad thing. There was no chance any more that I could train wreck the Titan to the face of Reznik. So I tried to position it away from other bastions' reach, but I failed.
I still wanted to use Hexeris' feat, which didn't actually do anything else except put on Black Spot on Temple Flameguard and kill about three errants.
Then I seem to have forgotten to take a picture from opponents next turn, but I'll give a brief summary what happened.
Believe it or not, but Bronzeback was killed. Crusader and Reznik cut it up and had a good grill party.
On my turn Extoller Soulward attacked Crusader and almost destroyed it. Hexeris tried to damage it too with a Hellfire. The one and only attack Bronzeback did to it destroyed it's cortex from column 4, so that was at least 12 points in. Though Extoller rolled it's POW 17 attack something like 4,5,6. It was left with one damage box in Movement system. Praetorian Swordsman came and auto-plinked that one point.
Situation was... interesting. I do believe that I could have won by attrition at this pointm possibly, since Revenger was in really bad shape and beyond that Protectorate had only a handful of infantry models standing. At least I could have had a chance to win the game. However, I had brought Hexeris too much forward.
Because this is what happened:
Vassal of Menoth... the pesky Vassal of Menoth shot down one beast handler with Arcane Bolt. Then Reznik cast Engine of Destruction on himself and charged the paingivers. Unsuprisingly, charge target died and Hexeris was now on Reznik's line of sight. He was, though, within 2" of Ashen Veil too.
Somehow Reznik managed to roll two misses against Hexeris.
Third attack was made with a boosted attack roll and a boosted damage roll. Hexeris had taken some damage in because of my stupid choices in wanting to use every possible fury on Hexeris' feat turn.
Well, Reznik butchers Hexeris with just one attack. And that's it. It's a pity, since he could have bought only one more attack.
I guess I went too cocky from my first victory with epic Hexeris and karma thought it best to bring my self-condifence back to normal boundaries.
When Frying Pan Comes
Today I played a game of When Darkness Comes.
It was with a new player who had no previous experience with this game, so I thought it'd be best to play the introductory scenario first. "Out of the Frying Pan" being its name, if memory serves.
I created a new character, who was dodgy and attacky as hell, but had really lame Intelligence, Persuasion and Medical as a result. Funnily enough the other player had created character, who was also speedy and had as bad defensive statistics as mine. There was some potential for interesting game here.
Main difference was, however, that my character had Attack 4 + 2 dice from martial combat, when his character had base attack 2. He had in intelligence what my character had in attack.
With this we started to hack and slash zombies.
We used the D12 house rule thingy, which in this scenario meant that every 12th turn all players got a failure token from the rising suspicions of townsfolk.
Game went fine and nobody died. Higher Speed statistics seems to actually be a nice assett when running away from too tough enemies. With earlier characters this has rarely been an option, but now with both characters at Speed 4 it was something that could be relied on, though both characters had only Defense/Health 3.
Hopefully we will get some new games in soon, I'd really want to test some totally new scenarios from expansions.
Oh, Rick won and my character lost the scenario, Rick gaining 2 skill points and a statistics rise, while I got only one skill point.
It was with a new player who had no previous experience with this game, so I thought it'd be best to play the introductory scenario first. "Out of the Frying Pan" being its name, if memory serves.
I created a new character, who was dodgy and attacky as hell, but had really lame Intelligence, Persuasion and Medical as a result. Funnily enough the other player had created character, who was also speedy and had as bad defensive statistics as mine. There was some potential for interesting game here.
Main difference was, however, that my character had Attack 4 + 2 dice from martial combat, when his character had base attack 2. He had in intelligence what my character had in attack.
With this we started to hack and slash zombies.
We used the D12 house rule thingy, which in this scenario meant that every 12th turn all players got a failure token from the rising suspicions of townsfolk.
Game went fine and nobody died. Higher Speed statistics seems to actually be a nice assett when running away from too tough enemies. With earlier characters this has rarely been an option, but now with both characters at Speed 4 it was something that could be relied on, though both characters had only Defense/Health 3.
Hopefully we will get some new games in soon, I'd really want to test some totally new scenarios from expansions.
Oh, Rick won and my character lost the scenario, Rick gaining 2 skill points and a statistics rise, while I got only one skill point.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
"Sister Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary" (Arkham Horror)
So, today I got to play Arkham Horror.
We had three investigators that we chose in the beginning and then randomised the Elder God. All players were rather newbies when it came to Arkham Horror, and we didn't have any expansions in play. So this was my first play of the base game.
I have always wanted to be a nun (uh... what?), so I chose Sister Mary. Other investigators were Pete the Drifter and Darrel Simmons, the photographer. Elder God was randomised as Nyarlathotep.
Sister Mary didn't show her best performance, because during first upkeep she rolled 1 for Blessing. And first round she went to Witch House and lost sanity when she started to hear the building itself whisper her name. She did get two awesome spells though, but because she started to lose sanity very rapidly, they were not of much use.
Investigators managed to close a huge number of gates, but only two of them were actually sealed during game. One of the places was The Woods where a gate was sealed. This proved to be a game-saver, since about four gates tried to open themselves there after sealing.
Anyway, game was suprisingly easy because everyone got a little bit too much Clue tokens and all characters had good enough Lore (which was important against Nyarlathotep). Of course Daniel Simmons was lucky, too, when he got the magic sword with +6 to combat checks from the beginning.
No investigators were devoured, but also no investigator had less than 5 clue tokens when Nyarlathotep was awaken from its slumber.
I try to do some update thingy on statistics now. I wonder if I need to do a separate statistics sheet for Arkham soon now, if I start to get games in more often.
Games played: 3
Victors:
Abhoth (1)
Yibb-Tstll (1)
Nyarlathotep (0)
Investigators: (1)
Investigators seen on board:
Bob Jenkins (1)
Ursula Downs (1)
Roland Banks (1)
Sister Mary the Nun (1)
Darrel Simmons the Photographer (1)
Pete the Drifter (1)
Dexter Drake the Magician (1)
Rita Young the Athlete (1)
We had three investigators that we chose in the beginning and then randomised the Elder God. All players were rather newbies when it came to Arkham Horror, and we didn't have any expansions in play. So this was my first play of the base game.
I have always wanted to be a nun (uh... what?), so I chose Sister Mary. Other investigators were Pete the Drifter and Darrel Simmons, the photographer. Elder God was randomised as Nyarlathotep.
Sister Mary didn't show her best performance, because during first upkeep she rolled 1 for Blessing. And first round she went to Witch House and lost sanity when she started to hear the building itself whisper her name. She did get two awesome spells though, but because she started to lose sanity very rapidly, they were not of much use.
Investigators managed to close a huge number of gates, but only two of them were actually sealed during game. One of the places was The Woods where a gate was sealed. This proved to be a game-saver, since about four gates tried to open themselves there after sealing.
Anyway, game was suprisingly easy because everyone got a little bit too much Clue tokens and all characters had good enough Lore (which was important against Nyarlathotep). Of course Daniel Simmons was lucky, too, when he got the magic sword with +6 to combat checks from the beginning.
No investigators were devoured, but also no investigator had less than 5 clue tokens when Nyarlathotep was awaken from its slumber.
I try to do some update thingy on statistics now. I wonder if I need to do a separate statistics sheet for Arkham soon now, if I start to get games in more often.
Games played: 3
Victors:
Abhoth (1)
Yibb-Tstll (1)
Nyarlathotep (0)
Investigators: (1)
Investigators seen on board:
Bob Jenkins (1)
Ursula Downs (1)
Roland Banks (1)
Sister Mary the Nun (1)
Darrel Simmons the Photographer (1)
Pete the Drifter (1)
Dexter Drake the Magician (1)
Rita Young the Athlete (1)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)