The Smell of Humiliated Fat

I actually played two games of Warmachine yesterday, but I'm writing this one up in haste.

Aw, heck. Who am I kidding here? It wouldn't take that much longer to write a big report instead of a small one, but I really want to break the post count record for any Januaries during this blog. And I'm doing that the easy way now.

So, we played a 25 point game, and I had taken my Skorne with me. Well, I did have a bad feeling about my list, because Dominar Rasheth isn't really your go-to guy in lower points.

My list:

Dominar Rasheth
- Archidon
- Rhinodon
- Cyclops Shaman
- Basilisk Krea

Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Minimum unit of Bog Trog Ambushers

And opponent had:

Thagrosh the Primal Version
- Carnivean
- Afflictor
- 2x Stinger
- Shredder

Minimum unit of Blighted Ogrun Warspears + Unit attachment
Forsaken

Something inside of me died when I had to hold back all the tears when opponent just wouldn't stop placing models on board. Five damage points was the lowest hit box count Legion had, and that was only one model, too. And still I had only four models more than Legion, and beast handlers and Basilisk Krea almost could be counted out in terms of doing damage to enemy models.

Scenario we randomised was the Steamroller 2014 version of Close Quarters.

Skorne got to start the game, and I didn't cry on the inside only because of the nasty list I was facing - my poor warlock, Dominar Rasheth, with his impressive speed 4 would have a lot of trouble on my side of the board. There was a river on the board that was covered by a hill and a small bridge. Run, fatty, run!

First picture is taken from the end of Legion turn 1.

On turn 2 the bog trogs ambush from the right and kill the Afflictor, and one of the fishmen is sacrificed to cast Blood Mark on Thagrosh.

I thought it would be no use for me to play too safe, because Legion pretty much had greater threat ranges around. So I tried to bring Rhinodon forward and just hope for the best. Cyclops Shaman was trying to be sneaky on the left, and if there would ever come a miracle where I'd be able to get rid of Warspears, the cyclop could start to control enemy flag.

Well, it was a beautiful thought.

Shame that all of my dreams and hopes, even those beyond Warmachine, were crushed next turn. Carnivean assaults Rhinodon and scores a hit against Rasheth with the spray. Boosted damage roll (with two dice) is really high indeed, and Rasheth loses 10 hit boxes. Rhinodon loses its life, so I guess Rasheth did better than Rhinodon in that way.

Thagrosh and Shredder kill all the bog trogs.

Here I really regretted not bringing Bronzeback Titan.

Well, still I tried. Enraged Archidon charges Carnivean and hopes for good rolls. I think there was one good roll or something, and the last attack was a critical hit which threw Carnivean away. Of course that didn't matter much, since next turn it'd only assault again...

Enraged Basilisk Krea tries to charge Stinger that had attacked Rhinodon last turn, but terrain makes the charge fail.

Cyclops Shaman charges warspears and kills one of them. I was hoping that the Shaman could tie up the ogruns.

Next turn the Stinger at the centre of the board frenzies and charges Carnivean. Sadly it doesn't block the possibility to assault Archidon, so Archidon dies. Spray attack also kills one beast handler.

Shredder goes rabid and walks and eats another beast handler.

I don't remember what the heck killed Basilisk Krea, but I know that much that it died. I can't believe Stinger would kill it alone, please, don't say so?

Anyway, after so many things had died the Cyclops Shaman was now the Prey target of Warspears. This meant that even that beast died.

I started my turn with Rasheth who had 8 Fury and 10 hit boxes, and one beast handler.

Uh oh.

A Lovely Sort of Plague (Deadzone)

Last Sunday I played two games of Deadzone.

First game was me playing the Enforcers against Plague.

Last game was me playing the Plague against the Rebs.

I need to start taking the camera with me from now on, since it's suprisingly difficult to remember any important details from a completely different rule system.

What I do remember is that the big plague guy (the 20+ point leader) advanced way too fast for my liking right next to my poor little enforcers. A command action, basic activation and a battle card can move the monster three cubes in a turn, and Plague got to start the game. Well, at least there was an epic scene, where the plague leader was standing on a second story, and melee enforcers were there trying to defy the beast. That was pretty futile, though. Not even two melee enforcers were a match for a plague stage 1A model. That was pretty much the downfall, since after it ate melee enforcers it moved right to support models with a free action. I think I lost four models out of my starting six during one turn?

Well, since we got some time we played another game.

I took Plague now, since that's the faction I'm starting to play eventually.

I had five plague hounds in my list and two stage 3 leaders, plus Doctor Simmonds. I also had two HMG specialists with blaze away ammo and one of the stage 2 monsters. I'm not sure if that was any good list, but the mission I got and Rebs army composition gave my forces a huge advantage - almost all enemy models were 10+ points, and I only needed to kill enemy models, gaining more victory points the more enemy model costs.

Rebs also had Teraton on the board. I guess the biggest turning point was when acid belching Stage 3 HMG specialist scored a lucky spit against the Teraton and killed it in one go. My dogs were dying left and right, but I guess they did their job when they were drawing fire from more important targets, as well as tying up enemy models in melee.

Though I'm not entirely sure which were more important models at that point than the dogs... the melee murder machine Stage 2A died to a combination of frag grenade that threw it out of a window and heavy armor piercing shooting by a Grogan with desolator.

Game could have been way different, though, if we'd have resolved T-Zero weapon team's first (and only) shot with Shockwave rule. Two additional dice with a success on 5+ would've statistically meant at least one more success per affected model. I don't remember what the rolls were, but getting pinned and especially getting suppressed delays engaging in melee (which Plague wants to do).

Eventually Plague won this match thanks to easy scoring from valuable kills. It didn't help Rebs that they got a rather difficult mission going on for them, where they had to survive over 50% of their starting number and scavenge items from board.

These two games went a lot better than the first one, since core mechanics were at least familiar now. There were still, however, plenty of moments where I had absolutely no idea which variables were to be counted in for different tests and how things were going to be resolved.

Though I think we played two games in roughly same time than the one game earlier.

Enter SR 2014

I played my first game of warmachine with Steamroller 2014.

When I was picking my warcaster I realised that I hadn't played with Wraith Witch Deneghra for almost one and a half year. She managed to skip Steamroller 2013 entirely.

Game was 50 points, and my list was:

Wraith Witch Deneghra
- Nightmare
- Reaper
- 2x Nightwretch

Maximum unit of Soulhunters
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Minimum unit of Mechanithralls
Darragh Wrathe
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Skarlock
Warwitch Siren
Ogrun Bokur (Deneghra client)
Ragman

And opponent had:

Tier list, not sure up to which tier level:
Epic Vayl
- 2x Ravagore
- 2x Angelius
- Seraph

Maximum unit of Hex Hunters
Maximum unit of Spawning Vessel & Acolytes
2x Shepherd
2x Spell Martyr


Despite Vayl's tier bonus Cryx got to start the game. First picture is taken from the end of Legion turn 1. On second turn Deneghra did what Deneghra does best - turns incorporeal, walks up and uses feat. Only the Ravagore on the far right and some Hex Hunters to the left are outside of Deneghra's control area. Deneghra cast Hellmouth on spawning vessel and killed about three or four acolytes.

A charge by Soulhunters against Hex Hunters (now who's hunting who?) killed a couple of the nyss infantry, and light cavalry movement ensured that the unit was engaged.

Other than these not much damage was done, but most importantly Refuge shenanigans by Angeliuses was stopped dead on their tracks.

Next turn Vayl attempts some slipstreams instead and places the spawning vessel to block LOS to Vayl herself. She also casts Icy Grip on Mechanithralls.

Hex Hunters and warbeasts kill all but one Soulhunter on the left side of things, and the free ravagore advanced to hill and tried to shoot Ragman, but missed.

Next turn I was quite confident I'd remove at least two heavy warbeasts. And I almost did, but combined efforts of Ogrun Bokur, Reaper, Nightwretch, Necrotech and even scrap thrall wasn't enough to bring the ravagore on the hill down.

Vayl had also cast Admonition on herself and she managed to escape rather easily. I had been thinking of casting a Hellmouth again on spawning vessel to drag her a bit closer before triggering Admonition, but somehow I still managed to charge the vessel with Mechanithrall. Since vessel was either undamaged or taken one or two damage points in the mechanithrall needed quite good roll to destroy it entirely. The roll was outrageous, so I lost Vayl and the possibility of killing Nightmare's target shepherd.

Deneghra cast Venom on the shepherd, then, and Nightmare chose the angelius as new prey. Then Nightmare charged its Prey and destroyed it.

Situation is a bit desperate on Legion now. Vayl tries to use her feat, but it goes awry when she is under Darragh Wrathe's Beyond Death.

Ravagore and Angelius on left manage to only dismount Darragh Wrathe, and Ravagore on right does some damage on Reaper. However, this was the last picture taken. Nightmare kills Seraph and the large gathering of random units eventually kill the ravagore on the hill. I don't have the heart to force opponent play any longer, and Legion concedes the game. After all there was only two hex hunters, Ravagore and Angelius versus about 40 points of Cryx.

Yeah, it was a tough match-up for epic Vayl. However, if Legion had won the starting roll I believe the game would have looked a lot different, and the Wraith Witch's feat wouldn't have been so crippling. It's actually really annoying when a single roll (the starting roll) dictates so much if a match-up is tough or if it's an outright stomp. Maybe I can now skip another year before I play epic Deneghra again.

What Happened? (Warmachine)

This game was played last week.

I played Cryx with following 35 points list:

Mortenebra & Deryliss
- Harrower
- Slayer
- Ripjaw
- Cankerworm

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Warwitch Siren

Opponent had:

Stryker1
- Stormclad
- Ironclad

Maximum unit of Long Gunners
Black 13th
Journeyman Warcaster
Lanyssa Ryssyll
Arlan Strangewayes
Squire
1x Stormsmith

My first thought: Mortenebra doesn't a heavy armor like, as Yoda would say.

Cryx started this game, and first picture is from the end of Cryx turn 2. Things didn't look good here - charge made by Satyxis Raiders against Stormsmith and Black 13th had utterly failed. None reached their targets in melee, though the models which ran could at least run to engage.

I was taking high risks during this turn, as I charged both Ripjaw and Cankerworm to Stormclad. I really wanted to do at least some damage before Stryker would use his feat, and though Ripjaw and Cankerworm both did quite okay damage, the columns were something like 3 and 6, so absolutely nothing broke down.

These were really bad mistakes on my part, because obviously now Stryker used his feat and Arlan Strangewayes came in for repairs. Some sort of miracle happened when Stormclad missed enough attacks to leave Cankerworm alive, but otherwise it was a disaster. Only good thing was that Journeyman Warcaster went a little greedy and charged Cankerworm to finish it off, but failed.

Next turn Cankerworm succeeds to punch Journeyman dead.

I see no other option except to take drastic measures and walk Mortenebra to her doom. She tries to cast Void Gate over the two Cygnaran warjacks to prevent them gaining focus, but thanks to cover from Ripjaw's wreck, the attack misses. At least Ironclad wouldn't gain focus next turn. Or so I thought...

Slayer charges objective on the right. Nope, doesn't kill. Then Necrotech charges the same objective. Nothing. I felt all my hopes sink, this was it. No chances, not at anything. But Deryliss was still unactivated, so it advanced as far as it could and cast Doom Spiral on the objective. I think the objectives were arm 18, and it had two damage boxes remaining, so Deryliss needed at least 8 to destroy it. And 8+ it was.

Next turn Lanyssa casts Hunter's Mark on Harrower and Ironclad charges it. So much for my waste of 5 focus. Harrower is destroyed in just two hits, though I believe it had taken some damage earlier, possibly from Long Gunners. They also shot 10 damage to Mortenebra.

Cankerworm is wrecked, too, and most of Satyxis Raiders get killed. Most importantly the sea witch managed to get herself killed, so I didn't even get to use Power Swell.

I guess opponent got a little carried off in slaughtering the Satyxis, since after Black 13th had forfeited their movement for aiming bonus, no models could get to contest the right control zone. So now Cryx got third control point.

As my turn started, I slowly realised that the game was in fact over. Mortenebra just had to run to dominate right control zone, and that gave her the scenario victory.

I think this was a classical case of a game where I won the scenario, but opponent won the game. At least that was how it felt. However, I did have a wacky possibility of an assassination on this very last round with Mortenebra herself, since Deryliss didn't die. She would've needed to kill Def 16 arm 19 undamaged Stryker with a maximum of five boosted attacks, or even less if she wanted to boost damage. The risk taker in me wanted to try just that, but the rational player in me took control and moved Mortenebra to dominate Cryx to five control points. Game over.

Ambush That Didn't Last For Long

A little bit over a week ago I played this game of Warmachine.

My list was (25 points):

Kaya the Wildborne
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Argus
- Gorax

Maximum unit of Bog Trog Ambushers
Druid Wilder

Since I had finally painted a full unit of Bog Trogs I wanted to use them right away. Because it was a 25 point game, many things had to be sacrificed... I was quite worried of playing Kaya with only one heavy warbeast.

My worries didn't ease at all when I saw opposing list:

Lieutenant Caine
- Avenger

Maximum unit of Greygore Boomhowler's & Co + Jonas Murdoch
Black 13th
Journeyman Warcaster
Ragman
Squire

I felt I had way too few attacks to deal with such a horde. And most of them had 4+ tough roll.

Scenario was Supply and Demand, and Circle got to start the game.

First picture is taken from the end... no, at the start of Circle's second turn. Because there are Bog Trogs on the board. And this is the last picture where you see them... but now I digress.

Opponent was a bit unfamiliar with the Ambush rule, so I got to pull off a nice charge against Black 13th and various support solos. I would've been able to get a few of them to attack Caine himself, but I didn't think they would actually kill him. So I focused on the support. Two of the Black 13th died, and Squire too.

Next turn Caine stands still for aiming bonus and uses his feat. Not even a single Bog Trog survives. So, pointwise thinking, my 8 points didn't even manage to kill 6 points off the board, so now I was outnumbered even worse. However, their sorry little ambush stalled Cygnarans a little, and there's no point value for that.

Avenger misses Gnarlhorn Satyr, which was quite a relief. The goat counter-slammed one advancing trollkin dead, and was shot for something like 33% of it's health boxes just by Boomhowler's alone.

So next turn I was forced to a piece trade. Or maybe I wasn't, but I sure felt like it!

Druid Wilder cast Primal on Gnarlhorn, who then charges Avenger. I was planning on wrecking Avenger and then taking a couple of swings the the objective. But as Gnarlhorn has a long history of failing at everything it tries to do, it managed to miss twice against def 12 target. With MAT 10, yes.

Well, on the plus side, one really high damage roll made up for those missed attacks and it did got to buy one attack against objective. But one wouldn't be enough to destroy it. Four points in.

Griffon had flown through the forest and killed the last remaining Black 13th and started to claw at a trollkin, who passed two tough rolls. Well, that doesn't matter, since I can still come with the Argus to finish off that trollkin. And either it passes all five tough rolls, or then Argus couldn't get through the trollkins armor. I don't remember exactly how it went, but the end result was that the trollkin was still standing (well, lying) and my beasts had forced themselves at least five times.

Griffon was teleported away with Spirit Door (Spirited Away?) and I noticed I was already dominating the control zone, so thing weren't entirely bad though they were not that good either.

Caine casts the spell that slammed its target on Gnarlhorn, but he rolls high enough to kill the wounded goat.

Otherwise the turn was quite merciful, since Argus returned the favor on the invulnerable trollkin. Def 15 made wonders for me. There is a small "glitch" in the picture, however. The objective is actually the wreck marker of Avenger and vice versa. We switched their positions, because one of the trollkins was impossible to balance on a heavy warjack model.

When I'm looking at the last picture, I got the feeling that there must be one round missing. I can't, however, remember how things went exactly. I remember charging objective with Gorax and Wilder but not managing to destroy it, but finally shooting it down with a Spirit Fang. What I don't get is how I managed to not kill those two trollkins that were contesting control zone... Perhaps one of them just kept on getting the 4+ on tough rolls?

Well, I guess the details are not that important here, because in the end it turned out to be a clear scenario victory for Circle. When I come to think of it, most of my victories with pKaya have come from scenarios. Again in this game without the scenario it would have been a bittle struggle of attrition.

Even when opponent had only Caine, three Boomhowlers, Ragman and Junior Warcaster for him, they would have been more than a match for Kaya and two light warbeasts.

Seizures

A few days ago I played a game of Warmachine on the Vassal virtual tabletop for all kinds of games.

It was a 25 point game and my list was:

Witch Coven of Garlghast
- Harrower
- 2x Nightwretch
- Stalker

Minimum unit of Mechanithralls + 1x Brute Thrall
Skarlock
Bloat Thrall

Opponent had:

Caine1
- Avenger

Maximum unit of Greygore's Boomhowlers + Murdoch
Black 13th
Journeyman Warcaster
Ragman
Squire

Scenario was a non-factor in this game. Cryx got to start, and the second picture shows the downfall of Cryxian forces.

Here is a very good tip for all warmachine players: Always double check rules for models that you encounter for the first time. Here's what happened:

I wasn't entirely sure if Harrower was within charge range of Avenger, but I decided to try anyway. It was close, the charge fell short for about half an inch. However, that was a risk I thought I could take, since I would use Coven's feat anyway. Effective def 14 Harrower in melee would be quite hard for opponent to entirely wreck, and just about the only system that really needs to stay intact for Harrower is the melee arm. Nightwretch also had arced Curse of Shadows on the Avenger, but that didn't really help anyone else but the opponent (the trollkin were able to assault through Avenger).

Avenger, however, has this nasty little effect on its weapon that's pretty much Paralyze for warjacks. Base def drops to 7 on a succesful hit, and the first attack was a hit. A serious blunder on my part to let that happen, since it was pretty much a death sentence for Harrower now.

On my next turn mechanithralls kill two trollkins, and even Bloat Thrall thwacks one of them in melee. A nightwretch arcs three Stygian Abysses at Black 13th - funnilly enough the ones that weren't boosted to hit were the ones that actually hit.

Situation was really tough, but I thought that there would always be a sudden death play mode for Witch Coven.

Next turn Caine uses his feat and kills all but the stealthed models within his range AND the mechanithrall that was in cover and in melee. That one was taken out by Boomhowlers.

Avenger tried to take a pot shot at focusless witches, but luckily it missed its deviation entirely.

Nightwretch on the right is destroyed, but the another wretch on left still has movement and arc node going on for it.

So, this is the sudden death moment right now.

Skarlock attempts to advance and cast Ghost Walk on the nightwretch, but the spell falls short by at least one entire inch. My chances of success just dropped by about 33%, give or take.

Witches have to cast Ghost Walk and Veil of Mists all by themselves that leaves only five focus to do the assassination with. I thought it's better to try to get a critical hit, so I boost attack roll. It's a hit, but not a crit. Caine takes some points of damage, because I somehow think I got better chances by shooting another Stygian Abyss at him. After all I would have needed quite crazy dice to kill him with one boosted POW 12. Looking back I probably should have tried exactly just that, but of course, then I didn't know what I would roll...

I don't remember any more if the second Stygian Abyss hit or missed, but the net result was about 6 points of damage to Caine, and then Cygnar got to start its turn with two Witches out of Stealth.

Their def 16 made two of them survive, but that's not enough in case of Witch Coven of Garlghast.

I don't usually concede, but now I did. I had no other models left other than two witches and Egregore, and there was absolutely no chances at trying anything with scenario. Game had went on for quite long, too, because of some connection issues to Vassal server.

But I guess the hard way is the best way to learn about new models, right?

Showcase Mushrooms

Well, for a change it's time for a Warmachine painting blog post.

I don't usually do those, because they're nothing "out of the ordinary". They are what I paint most.

But this project is somewhat special. Models for Blindwater Congregate are probably my most ambitious attempt at painting and basing miniatures, and over a year after their purchase, Bog Trog Ambushers are finally done - a full unit of ten.

On my other armies there will always come a point where I start rushing things to get the pieces finished. Bases for my larger armies of Cryx, Skorne and Circle of Orboros have become quite repetitive without any kind of unique touch.

But with Blindwater Congregate each and every base is and will be one of a kind. The models from Blindwater Congregate come from magical mushroom forest. I think I've posted Wrong Eye & Snapjaw here on this blog, too. Some minions can probably be seen from the pictures in battle reports.

Now, however, is the first time I can place a full unit of little fish men with large mushrooms down and take a picture. They are packed closely and not scattered all over the board, so the volume of oversized mushroom looks the way I want. Damn, I'm proud. I guess I could be even more proud if it wasn't for my atrocious photography skills, but no matter how bad lightning I managed to arrange, the mushrooms are still visible.

Few more models and I will probably take an army picture of all the mushroomed models up-to-date.

Beware the Angry (and exploding) Dog

Today I had the pleasure of trying out Deadzone, the nearly published kickstarter project by Mantic Games. A friend had taken part in it and had everything needed to play.

We played a 70 point Marauders vs Rebs game. I played Rebs.

The game uses a hidden mission system, where you and your opponent probably have entirely different missions, and you can only guess what your opponent is trying to achieve. That is a lovely touch to almost any game, I think.

Anyway, my mission was Break Through, which now, looking back, was a bad mission for my team. Objectives are to pass through enemy deployment zone and kill as many enemy models as possible. Marauders are quite tough, and the deployment zones happened to be corners, so it'd be difficult to rush through the space orcs.

Of course it didn't really help that I sacrificed my medic rather stupidly. I could have probably placed it a lot better to gain some cover from incoming fire, but no, I placed the medic almost dancing macarena right in almost open.

I guess it's a bit difficult to wrap your head around in a boardgame/miniature game hybrid that uses squares (or cubes) and not a ruler for movement, but the actual position and placement of your model within the cube is pretty important. But maybe next time I remember such things, because that slight mistake made the medic suffer rather a miserable last fifteen minutes of its life. First medic suffered horrible injuries from some kind of machine gun, after which a flame thrower set the Judwan on fire and it was pinned down, and next turn an enraged orc charged the burning pacifist who was lying on the ground and ended the medic's sorry life. I guess it matters a lot when and where you dance macarena. If you choose your place badly, you might get shot at, burned and stabbed. Well, anyone who does dance macarena probably deserves all that, so in the end justice was served.

Another rather brutal thing was the Mawbeast Bomber. Oh gods, that was horrible. The little doggy ran to a building, where two (2) of my rebel yndij troopers attempted to shoot it down with the help from battle tactic cards. The Mawbeast isn't very well protected, so shooting the dog should've been rather easy especially when both yndijs managed to get a clear shot against it. Only thing they ever did, however, was to just get one wound to it.

Next turn the dog engaged the yndijs in melee and killed them both, and due to some shenanigans it entered the same floor with my rebel sorak (a crowd control model).

Sorak attempts to break off from the beast with help from a tactic card again, but fails to do so and Mawbeast bites off sorak's head just as it jumps down the building.

I really, really wanted to get rid of that nasty lil' doggie now, and used Head Shot card with a human rebel to shoot the puppy. That card was a bit wasted since I wasn't aware that the dog had no armor, but anyway the end result was that it finally died.

The chances that the explosion would do much to neighboring squares was quite low, but still it pinned down my leader and KILLED the trooper that shot it. That 7 point model managed to kill four of my models and pin one of them down. Casualties in points were 22, almost one thirds of point allowance.

Game was over already on round 2. Rebels had scored a whooping 2 points, where one point came from the dog that exploded and one was the stranded mercenary who started the game in a square right next to my heavy firepower. None managed to infiltrate.


Well, it was a first game of something of an entirely different rule set than I've used to. The rules are more complex than in most boardgames, but even from my newbieish point of view they seemed quite solid when you finally have learned how the game "plays". I'm definitely giving Deadzone a few extra tries. Biggest disappointing things were the game universe and the lack of interesting factions (to my subjective opinion, of course)

Now this thing seems to be going into a review of sorts, so maybe I'll put down the pros and cons of Deadzone, but again I want to underline that they are based on one gameplay and strong, personal preferences in games.

Pros:
- Possibility of interactive campaign play. How I miss Mordheim for this...
- Despite being a board game at its core, still play field is three dimensional. So game area isn't 8x8 squares, it's actually 8x8x8, though I'm not sure if there is actually a limit to the height.
- Use of d8's instead of d6's. Well, not much else here except that it makes the game feel a bit different. Actual use of dice was pretty straightforward, roll above this or that number and it's a success.
- Different goals for players during play.
- Very manageable sized playing board. Heck, this one takes a lot less space than some actual board games. If I compare to my own collection, even unexpanded Talisman takes a lot more space and unexpanded Touch of Evil takes about the same, though during play Touch of Evil probably needs more space thanks to tons of different discard piles.
- There aren't very long waiting times in between the turns built-in to the system. When all players know the rules quite well I believe the waiting times between getting to play are even less. And unless there is a mechanic I'm unaware of, this doesn't even change with game size, since you're activating only a few models in one go.

Neutrals:
- Good enough rules overall, but they did (at least for just one game) seem to lack "oh wow I wanna play more!" effect. On the other hand, they didn't tick any nerves bad way either so that the rule set would be a deciding matter if I want to start the game or not.

Cons:
- Game universe isn't very original. But that's just a design choice, so this opinion is probably most subjective of all thing listed here.
- Conjoined with the above: first four factions didn't sport much interest in me, and two that come next (space elves and dwarves) aren't that awesome either. Starting to play would be a matter of "what I think I can play" rather than "what I want to play".
- Wow... I can't think of anything else?


Hmm.

Now when I write those things down in a list like that it seems that the only reasons that keep me away from starting Deadzone are purely aesthetic. That's probably a good thing, right?

The Feeling of Dread Within These Walls

Because Santa had been kind enough to write me a gift card to local gaming shop, I went and bought the Unhappy Homes expansion for Gloom.

Not much else to say, except that I was delighted to see that ducks become a little more important story element now, and not only that... Penguins, too!

The expansion has 45 new actual playing cards, the remaining ten are the new family and a house for every family in the base game. I hope this means that even in four player game the deck wouldn't need to be reshuffled so many times, and repetition that we encountered in playing two games in short order would be much less.