Can't Get the Angle R ight

 Gave a second round of Malifaux demo to a local Angler prospect. 

Crews we had:

Sebastian & Zombie Chihuahua
2x Flesh Construct
Guild Autopsy

Pool: 2

Opponent had:

Aunty Mel & Bruce
3x Skulker Skin

Pool: 4

Scenario was my demo standard: if a model was killed this round, gain 1 point. Scheme pool: Dig Their Graves, Assassinate, Breakthrough, Deliver a Message, Detonate Charges.

This set-up worked quite well. There were two targets for Aunty Mel's White Whale. Experimentals had absolutely horrible defense with Bruce around, so Skulker Skins had no trouble connecting hits, but weren't dealing that much damage per hit, while Flesh Constructs had to rush in and play it risky, certainly dishing out damage where I wanted. This resulted in a steady trading of models for victory points. 

Both of my schemes (Detonate Charges and Deliver a Message) required enemy models alive, so I couldn't just go to town with Sebastian's bone saw. Opponent, on the other hand, just needed my models dead with Assassinate and Dig Their Graves. 

So it was a pretty good demo setting. 

As a honorable mention Aunty Mel ended game with four Tide Markers that she had placed herself... had not one of them been turned into a scheme marker, there would have been five. Movement is way overrated in Malifaux, anyway. 👀

Guards! Guards! (with added rats)

 I gave a Malifaux demo. edit: Actually two, with the other one week-and-a-half later. So I'll slap it here instead.

This time opponent had own figures, so I couldn't go with my usual setup. 

Instead, we had:

Taggart Queeg
The Dispatcher
2x Rifleman

And my team:

Sebastian
Zombie Chihuahua
2x Flesh Construct

So, we broke the rules with totems! How horrible. 

I was a bit worried how a demo would turn out against such a shooty team.

However, a real simple scenario of "gain a victory point if you killed an enemy model this turn" worked wonders, as it kept the death count in check. Guild could have easily shot off one of my Flesh Constructs off the board first turn thanks to a lucky severe damage from a rifle shot, but since you couldn't score during first turn it was advantageous to keep the thing alive. This gave me some time to poison up the Flesh Construct and heal it with Blood Poisoning, thus demonstrating how situation on board is in constant shift. 

Taggart shot an enemy scheme off my Zombie Chihuahua, and was able to turn it into a friendly scheme with his bonus. 

We played with open schemes, so I knew opponent had Dig Their Graves. Since the Flesh Construct, now at four health, had been right next to Zombie Chihuahua, this was an excellent move that I did not even especially point out. 

Next turn opponent obviously shot the Flesh Construct away. This left time for an angry puppy to charge a rifleman, essentially dealing three points of damage via two poison from Infect, turned instantly to damage with Blood Poisoning. And after activation ended, the doggo stank one more point of poison.

Taggart would have none of it, and whipped the puppy dead since it was insignificant and didn't count for scenario. He walked a bit closer towards Chihuahua's corpse, which made it possible for a reckless Flesh Construct to do a double walk and interact for Deliver Message.

Rifleman and Dispatcher were softening up Flesh Construct, and Sebastian walked and tossed formaldehyde over a bunch of models. Only one test failed - the one that Flesh Construct relented. Boo.

Next turn Flesh Construct was able to score a kill from Rifleman that had a single wound remaining. Guardsmen butchered the thing up, and suddenly there was only Sebastian left of my crew. Next turn he did manage to kill second Rifleman, but was brought down to two or three health remaining. That was Assassinate reveal for Guild. And last turn they scored Assassinate end condition. 

So, there was enough action going on after all, and casualties on both sides. Good game as far as demos go. 

Demo 2:

During last demo I grew fond of the idea of using totems without a master for demo purposes. I also shook up my own list to:

Benny Wolcomb
1x Stolen
Obedient Wretch
2x Prospector

and for the demo player:

Sebastian
Zombie Chihuahua
2x Guild Autopsy
Flesh Construct

I didn't spam soulstones with Prospectors or even take Rat Kings with me when I left home. I felt those might skew demo too much. But otherwise I liked the dynamic of my team having three Manipulative and one Serene Countenance model, while opponent had one Ruthless model. 

Starting from second turn onwards, I diverted one Prospector towards Experimental deployment zone, which left me struggling in the middle. Benny, Obedient Wretch, Stolen and Prospector just weren't much of a threat to Guild Autopsy, Flesh Construct and Sebastian. Especially when opponent received Assassinate point on turn two, and first activation on turn 3 killed Benny. 

But  I did manage to kill one Guild Autopsy for a strategy point, and Deliver a Message to Sebastian. The lone Prospector was able to spam scheme markers to opponent's deployment enough to score Breakthrough reveal and end. Opponent, however, received full points from Assassinate, one from Dig Their Graves and a total of three from strategy when they managed to kill even the last Prospector. Not much of a breakthrough, now wasn't it? 

And now we just wait if the planted seeds come to fruition. 

Interesting Conversation

 Did a Malifaux demo with my usual setup of Sebastian, Flesh Construct and 2x Guild Autopsy vs Philip & Nanny, Shikome and 2x Crooligans.

I don't know if it gave the wrong impression about the lethality of this game when Guild Autopsy Red Jokered Crooligan to death on very first shot opponent ever did. Uh oh.

At least Flesh Construct didn't do much to Shikome that had sailed full speed ahead to get to enemy deployment zone,, but then again Shikome was able to kill it with her activation. 

Models were dropping so fast in this game that when it was turn four I only had Philip & Nanny left on board. They had managed to score Breakthrough, but other than that I had only one point from strategy while opponent had three.

I could have tried to prolong the game and try to get Breakthrough end condition, but since it was demo game I decided to try something a little more exciting. Philip & Nanny charged Guild Autopsy, scored Accidental Roll Over and went to ask one more question from another Guild Autopsy that had one health left. 

Guild Autopsy just couldn't handle that question and died. 

But Philip & Nannys conversations weren't boring enough this time, as Sebastian could easily remove the remainder of their hit points. In fact a little too efficiently, when Philip & Nanny died to one hit when they had five health remaining - opponent had Assassinate for scheme. 

Opponent seemed to enjoy the game and soon enough this city may get Lady Justice within their ranks.

Burning Pram

 I gave another Malifaux demo on Vassal for a potential player with whom I had already played a demo game earlier.

We expanded the complexity to:

25 soulstones with masters

Standard Plant Explosives

Schemes: Assassinate, Search the Ruins, Breakthrough, Detonate Charges, Claim Jump

My list was:

Molly + Necrotic Machine
Philip & Nanny
Rabble Riser
Night Terror
Crooligan

Stones: 2
Schemes: Search the Ruins, Detonate Charges

Opponent had:

Dr. McMourning + Zombie Chihuahua
Rafkin
Flesh Construct
2x Guild Autopsy

Stones: 1
Schemes: Search the Ruins, Breakthrough

Since it was essentially a demo I won't go into that much detail. Suffice to say that with this low model count it was kind of difficult to deny points which, I think, fits well to a demo game. After all it's more fun to score points.

Dr. McMourning got a really good stacking of poison going on, but this also caused Experimentals to move in one big group. This left Crooligan, and to some extent Night Terror, to plant strategy markers and scheme markers without anyone stopping them. 

Turn three was rather interesting for me. I had managed to save one thirteen from last round. I had to take a picture from cards I drew. 

And as opponent was throwing away cards left and right I couldn't even refill my hand with Molly. This all caused, for example, Philip & Nanny to fail to put up Boring Conversation. And that was their death sentence. In the end they survived the activation phase with two health remaining. But they had a staggering amount of Poison +13, which Necrotic Machine failed to remove because of my hand.

In the end scores went 8-6 for Molly with opponent missing end condition from Breakthrough and one strategy point.

Demography

One more Malifaux demo. When will they start to bear fruit? 

Since it was a physical demo, I used 2x2 board again. 

My team

Philip & the Nanny
2x Crooligan
Shikome

And for the opponent:

Sebastian
Flesh Construct
2x Guild Autopsy

Scheme pool for this time around was: Detonate Charges, Assassinate, Deliver a Message and Breakthrough. I dropped Search the ruins because it isn't that good of a scheme on 2x2.

I chose Breakthrough once more, and opponent picked Deliver a Message.

As for strategy I had this tried and tested demo scenario of one victory point for one kill.

First activation on turn 2 had me worrying if game would go too one-sided for the wrong side. Crooligan slapped a Guild Autopsy dead with a red joker. Fortunately this evened out by opponent red jokering that Crooligan dead. Today there were no wet noodles on the menu.

Throughout most of the game Boring Conversation was more than a nuisance - it was annoyance for opponent, as I caught the entire Experimental crew inside the bubble, and opponent had blocked Flesh Construct from easily entering fight that was being fought right on the doorsteps of Experimental deployment zone. 

Sebastian starts stitching up Canine Remains from corpses of both Crooligans and both Guild Autopsies. This almost backfires when Philip & Nanny kills one of the woofies before leaving only a squeaking wheel of the pram behind when Flesh Construct finally manages to haul itself into melee.

Opponent scored only one point from Deliver a Message because of this.

Last activation on fourth turn was Shikome trying to kill an additional Canine Remains, but failing to do that. I had scored three victory points from killing models and one from Breakthrough reveal. Both players were at 4 victory points, so initiative for last turn was pretty much a deciding factor if we'd have a draw. 

Both of us flipped a "1" for initiative.

Experimentals had a better hand and was able to seize initiative. 

Shikome died.

4-5 for Experimental.

Breakthrough

 I did a demo of Malifaux on vassal. I used the same teams as earlier, which were for me:

Philip & the Nanny
2x Crooligan
Shikome

And for the opponent:

Sebastian
Flesh Construct
2x Guild Autopsy

I tweaked the scheme pool a little, this time offering Breakthrough, Leave a Message, Detonate Charges and Search the Ruins.

If I ever get to offer more demo games, I might switch Detonate Charges for Assassinate as every single scheme this time required scheme markers.

My scheme was Breakthrough again while opponent had taken Search the Ruins. 

This time my forces weren't too impressive. The only kill was scored by Shikome with a severe damage against Guild Autopsy. Flesh Construct ate one Crooligan and killed another, but at least they bought enough time for Philip & Nanny to speed up to enemy deployment zone to spawn some scheme markers.

Shikome lasted surprisingly long, considering she was against stat 7 Sebastian. He was even brought down to three hit health remaining. I would have tried to attack him one last time with Philip & Nanny on round 5, but opponent won initiative and ran to safety with Sebastian.

Game ended 2-5 for Experimental.

A hopeful prospect

 So I did a demo game of Malifaux. Will this city get its third Malifaux player? Only time will tell...

I wanted to use only official models, so for myself I had a team of:

Philip & the Nanny
2x Crooligan
Shikome

Demo group was:

Sebastian
Flesh Construct
2x Guild Autopsy

We had a simple scenario of "gain 1 point for each killed model" and one chosen scheme from a group of four, played revealed. Choices were: Assassinate, Breakthrough, Leave a Message, Dig Their Graves.

(Too late I realized how terrible Dig Their Graves was for this matchup - 100% of team Experimental was able to remove corpse markers!)

I picked Breakthrough while opponent took Leave a Message. 

Fortunately the game itself presented exciting situations and cinematic moments, like Guild Autopsy red jokering Philip & Nanny on the first round, and Flesh Construct triggering Swallow You Whole on a Crooligan just as it had reached one health.

It was around fourth turn when round began with Philip & the Nanny and last remaining Crooligan at one health remaining while Experimentals had Sebastian and both Guild Autopsies around. Points were 3-1 for Experimental. 

Demofaux

While visiting Kuhmo, I introduced Malifaux to an old friend of mine.

We did two demo games - first with 20 soulstones and no strategy or schemes just to get the hang of basics and then soon after another with 20 soulstones + master with Reckoning and one scheme.

First round was Madame Sybelle and two Rotten Belles versus Philip & Nanny with three Crooligans. The first round went pretty easily to Madame Sybelle's crew, as the kids weren't able to toss enough sharp debris at the belles.

Then we added the masters and schemes, and things got interesting. Crooligans had easy time setting up Harness the Ley Lines, and Philip & Nanny dodged astonishing amount of assassination attempts after Seamus landed a moderate injury with his gun and then charged in with his barber gear. Philip just didn't want a new haircut. Once Seamus committed, Necrotic Construct charged him and let Molly to activate and start asking Seamus some questions. This brought Seamus down to three health remaining, with one poison counter.

This game went for Molly, as in the last round a Crooligan was able to charge Seamus dead after he had heard a disturbing story, which brought him down to one health remaining. Both players scored strategy twice, and Molly scored scheme twice. Had the child not succeeded in killing the enemy master, it would have likely been a draw as opponent would've easily dispatched of the Crooligan, scoring Dig Their Graves.

First demo game for mk3

Some time ago I offered a demo session of Warmachine for a particularly interested player.

I made demo lists like these:

Asphyxious3
- Harrower
- Helldiver
- Defiler

vs

Asphyxious1
- Seether
- Nightwretch
- Stalker
Bloat Thrall

And they played out rather nicely. Though I did forget about Unyielding, and when I noticed it I did not want to pull of such a rule out of thin air when game had already went on for a while. But that was a handicap for me.

Eventually I charged Asphyxious3 post-feat against Seether and wrecked it. I had five focus for damage mitigation, but it was not enough when Asphyxious1 charged the future him. I tried to play so that game would have some interesting moments but without me doing something excessively ridiculous. And it worked. Next friday we're having some real 10 point games, so I suppose demo was a success.

This is not a test test

I played a demo game of This is not a Test (TnT) during Ropecon 2016.

At one point we were supposed to start a TnT campaign of our own here in Jyväskylä, so I thought it might be worthwhile to give it a try.

Also, the board was gorgeous.

I got to choose my team between some sort of weapon carrying scavengers and wasteland mutants, and, well, honestly there was no choice for me. Mutants it was.

The demo scenario was a homebrew system that was both a race to get to the other side of the board. You got most victory points from getting out of table, but also from killing NPC monsters and opposing team members.

Combat mechanics reminded me a little bit of Frostgrave. You roll a die, both add their modifiers and that's it. Melee combat roll doesn't decide the result for both combatants, though, but as the wounds are actually resolved at the end of the round the melee combat is very lethal indeed. Beware those rats and badgers you might see running amok in the post-apocalyptic world.

I got to satisfy my disturbed perversion of trying to out-shoot the shooty factions with non-shooty options. My pistol wielding mutant spent several turns firing at scavengers, but it wasn't very effective. In the end the pistol jammed, putting an end to my shooting spree. I guess the dice knew better.

Scavengers got tied up against giant rats and the badger for several turns. Mutants had a little bit easier time dispatching a scorpions and some giants rats. Furry melee mutant I had went recklessly into melee at every possibility. This was it's downfall as a rat ate the mutant. Its sacrifice shall not be forgotten! (Unless it already is...) Last of the three mutants, some sort of bile belching guy, succeeded in melting all the remaining NPC resistance that was on my way.

Mutants won in the end when rats ate a second scavenger and I managed to escape the board with two mutants.

Dropzone Commander

I just came back from playing Dropzone Commander. It was a demo game of sorts, though no-one had extensive experience about the game.

We played with the two player box starter armies, Scourge vs UCM. I was playing Scourge.

Game beginning brought me horrid flashbacks about shooting with lascannon in games of Warhammer 40k. I was rolling dice so terribly that at one point it became hilarious. I didn't roll even a single 3+ until second round!

Second round wasn't all that much better. UCM had already found an objective from the building in the middle and had embarked back to APC. What does it take to kill one APC? Well, something more than three anti-tank skimmers, three dropships and two anti-aircraft skimmers. Exactly one (1) damage point was caused to the APC, and to really rub it in, that damage point had been caused by anti-aircraft vehicle!

This was amazing, as Scourge starter set looked like it was designed on having high speed, low range, decent skill and heavy damage. And now all of my combat units were clumped there in the middle.

UCM tanks shot my anti-tank skimmers, only one remained. Enemy anti-aircraft weaponry disembarked that turn, which gave me a little bit more survivability.

One of my infantry squads entered the building on left and started searching for the objective.

Turn three I was surprised how slow the enemy APC was after all. I did score the last damage point in, and the whole thing exploded along with the middle objective. UCM was closing in on the right side objective building, but was probably a little afraid by my anti-aircraft power.

It wasn't for long until all of my dropships had been shot down. Nonetheless, there was some kind of a turning point in the game now. Skimmer bonuses against shooting attacks caused enemy to miss a lot of attacks, and though their last infantry had entered objective building on right, they had not found it yet. My second infantry unit were speeding to the building on right. They needed to survive three enemy tanks, though.

Squad on the left found objective and started hauling it to my table edge. The other transport disembarked my second squad (though now when I think of it, I think I moved 6" and disembarked instead of the half move) which entered building on right. UCM decided to leave the building before close combat ensued. My troops found the objective and disembarked to my transport.

Late in the game I had two anti-aircrafts still moving about, and both infantry units and their transports. I had managed to shoot down one dropship, one APC with squad inside and one enemy tank. For comparison, I had lost three dropships, three anti-tank skimmers and one anti-aircraft skimmer.

Both of my transports with a squad inside with an objective managed to escape the board, and the other transport had even suffered a damage point. We probably played around eight or nine rounds, though, as nobody remembered the turn limit.

Anyway. It was a victory, but a pyrrhic one at best. I hope Scourge officers higher up in the hierarchy won't punish underlings, that manage to lose three dropships, too harshly. Probably they do, as their aesthetics give a bad guy impression.


So. What to say about the game itself? Well, I went in completely unprepared and still managed to grasp the rules well enough that we actually got to play a game. I'm not sure how long the game would have taken if we hadn't got a third player checking for rules. Anyway, I'm sure the system itself is simplified enough that games play relatively quick once both players know what they're doing.

In a way the rules felt familiar with 40k background. Attack rolls are made with a d6, and you got accuracy value that you have to beat, pretty much exactly like Ballistic Skill without any unnecessary extra tables. Ability to damage things was done by comparing weapon strength against target armour value and finding out the required score from a table.

Activations, on the other hand, played entirely different. You have battlegroups of multiple models that activate in I-go-you-go fashion. Starting player is determined each round by rolling initiative, like in Battletech. This created interesting "I have to win initiative now or all is lost" situations, though I think I won, like, two initiatives during whole game.

My verdict is that the rules didn't feel bad, and there's probably extra depth hidden in command card mechanics that weren't used in this demo game. Gameplay didn't spark a "wow I must get play more" reaction, but it's difficult to judge if that was because of the rules, or was it just because I'm not a big fan of small scale games, nor science fiction games.

Warmachine Demo

Last Wednesday I did a small demo game of Warmachine for a starting Protectorate player.

Demo forces were:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Leviathan
- Stalker
- Nightwretch

and

Warwitch Deneghra
- Slayer
- Defiler
- Ripjaw

Which makes a total of 11 points per side.

I tried to make the demo forces fairly balanced against each other, and I think I succeeded at least somewhat. Leviathan would be able to dish out damage from afar, but not end the game right away by getting lucky shots against Deneghra. Stalker would be relatively safe from Crippling Grasp and Parasite. Deneghra on the other hand had enough arc nodes to afford to lose one by accident. And even if Slayer would die to just about anything, Ripjaw would be able to deal damage in this small game size.

Opponent took Asphyxious.

Since it was a demo game I chose not to play too safely, and pushed on aggressively instead. Opponent probably got good taste of the combo mechanics of Warmachine, when Ripjaw dealt charge damage to Nightwretch with dice + 7...

Slayer fell to Leviathan shots and I charged Leviathan with Deneghra. Damage rolls were excessively poor, so that was a little bit of an anti climatic moment. Leviathan on the other hand shook off Shadow Bind and hit Deneghra once, bringing her to two damage boxes remaining. Asphyxious made short work of her. In fact there was a chance that Deneghra might have died to the POW 5 damage roll from Asphyxious' feat... now, even if I wasn't playing WAAC in this demo game, that would have been embarrassing.

New year starts with cross dr... I mean cross demonstration!

One of the Mordheim players here had voiced some interest in Warmachine, and today we played two demo games.

It was a cross demo between Warmachine and Hordes with following lists:

War Witch Deneghra
- Leviathan
- Nightwretch
- Deathripper

and

Kaya the Wildborne
- Feral Warpwolf
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gorax

It didn't seem to cause too much unnecessary confusion that we used both systems. In fact it seemed to cause less confusion than when I have included a solo or two in demo games. A video battle report or two did wonders in absolutely necessary rule referencing - I almost didn't need to explain the basics at all, and games could start right away with me explaining as we go.

Kaya did win both games, but in first game it took very last possible attack I was able to make, and Kaya was at one hit box then. Second game Kaya beat Deneghra personally in melee, but again she had five or less hit boxes remaining.

I don't know what else there is to say since it was a demo game. Fresh blood is more than welcome in this city. Or if the demo player picks up Cryx, then fresh... undead... flesh?

Oh, nice. And I just broke the "arrow up" button on my keyboard.

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?

Cross-demo (again)

Two weeks ago I demo'd Warmachine.

I asked if the player wanted test Warmachine or Hordes, and as it turned out, we played a couple of cross-demo games.

Hordes was played with:

Kaya the Wildborne (12 points)
- Feral Warpwolf
- Gorax
- Scarsfell Griffon

And Cryxian list was:

Iron Lich Asphyxious (12 points)
- Seether
- Defiler
- Deathripper

We played two games so that we switched factions. This was a funny little dilemma again - since we played two games, should they be added to the statistics as two games, or as one instance of giving demo games out? Finally after many a sleepless night I opted for the latter option. Focus was on teaching the game around a bit, not on the actual games and their outcomes.

Well, there isn't much to say about the games, except that Circle got the alpha strike in both games, probably because they got to start both games.

A Demo Game

Wow, I managed to break my long tradition of two demo games per year. Now the record is three.

This time I knew I was going to give a demo game to a player who didn't have actual miniature game experience, so I tried to keep army lists quite simple.

The lists were:
Warwitch Deneghra
- Slayer
- Ripjaw
- Deathripper

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Reaper
- Nightwretch
- Defiler

So that was a nice 10 points for each player.

I got the list with Deneghra.

Anyway, what was nice to see is that the core of this game hasn't changed. Of course the 100% knowledge of the game becomes more and more complex with every release to the point that complete mastery becomes pretty much impossible. But, really, the core mechanics are pretty nice and functional. And why wouldn't they be.

So, the game went on quite nicely and smoothly. It ended to the victory of Deneghra, who survived with only one hit box left! And even then the game ended because opponent lost all warjacks, so it wasn't even a caster kill. I think this must've been the best demo game I've given, because it played quite aggressively and things were happening all the time. And damage was done. Oh yeah, damage was done.

Well, we'll see if this city gets another player soon. I sure hope so.

About a Demo (Warmachine)

What really made Levels 2013 Warmachine tournament such a success was some sort of publicity.

And by publicity I mean that it eventually lead into a demo game of Warmachine that took place about a week and a half ago.

Person in question was a long-time miniature gamer, so Warmachine was cross-demoed (I raise my middle finger to dictionary here I guess) with Hordes.

Game itself was somewhat epic, because it happened to go into caster versus caster personal melee combat. The melee combat itself wasn't that epic, however, because first Scaverous failed to nail down Kaya the Wildborne (she was left with two hit boxes) and in return Kaya didn't manage to bring down focusless Scaverous by herself, even by using her feat.

Gnarlhorn Satyr had to dislodge itself from melee and come and stomp Scaverous a bit more. Problem here was that Gnarlhorn Satyr had lost its Mind -branch, which was healed by Kaya to one point remaining.

Free strike was made by P+S 7 Nightwretch, so barring absurd damage the beast would survive, but even such a pesky melee ability could cripple such a mighty warbeast by rolling only one point of damage to wrong branch...

But it was not meant to be. If memory serves, Nightwretch rolled enough to get exactly to Gnarlhorn's armor value.

It seems that the Curse of Scaverous carries even into demo games.


What I did notice during this demo game is the amount of rules you, as a somewhat active Warmachine player, start to take for granted. Last time I gave a demo game of Warmachine it was to a player with next to zero experience in miniature games. It was easy to explain everything with "this is just how everything goes" mentality. I mean, I did not actually have to stop and give any introspection to the inner workings of game mechanics.

But this time around opponent (or rather the one receiving the demo game) had the experience to ask questions, and it was a very different thing to answer questions than to just say okay things happen like this - oh, except you can't do just that, you have to do it like this.... I guess some real questions gave some insight on what basic things do raise questions in first-timers.

Curiouser and curiouser, but that's for my musings now.

A small demo update

Well, just updating because I have to.

While I was staying with people in Salo, we played a small 10 point demo game of Warmachine, since I had my miniatures with me, because I had been in Turku Fanatic tournament.

It was a funny little game with Dominar Rasheth and Old Witch of Khador duking it out.

Second Mk2 demo given in

Today I gave in a second demo game for another possible new player.

I used the same demo groups I used earlier, and the opposing player picked up Deneghra's group.

It's curious, now, to start seeing which elements of the game are hard to grasp for players who have never played the game.

Also, I really need to get a small mercenary group to make real demo games, as I feel it might give a bit different feel of the game when both sides have powerful spells and quick arc nodes.

Anyway, this time around there was a severe beating around. Everything else but one bonejack and the necrotech were destroyed during the game. In the end the situation was familiar; Asphyxious was able to engage in melee with Deneghra, despite getting a free strike from a deathripper that had lost its head.

Asphyxious had been brought down to 7 hit points remaining. He cast Scything Touch on himself and dealt exactly 16 points in to Deneghra.

I think, however, that the opponent got the run for his money as Deneghra's feats effects were somewhat hilarious - next to everything I did missed or dealt no damage because of the -2, even in such a corner-case scenario when my Nightwretch would have hit opposing Deathripper with normal rolls, but missed because of the feat. I guess it was a good demonstation how feats can, and will, change games?

First "demo" given in Mk2

Just a few moments ago I finished giving a demo game for a new potential player.

This presented somewhat of a weird challenge for me. I mean, for the statistics...

I mean, if in some time in the future I've given lots of demo games to random people with my own models with lists I've constructed myself, I feel it would fudge my win/loss ratio unfairly.

So I decided that I will not note down demo games I've given to people under my faction and caster based statistics.

However, I made a separate field in my spreadsheet for demo games. As no matter what, they are still games and need to be counted up... right? Am I crazy?

Anyway, as I have only one faction (yet...) for Warmachine, I had to make two demo lists using Cryx with both.

I made 11 point lists that were:

Warwitch Deneghra
- 2x Deathrippers
- Slayer

Satyxis Raider Captain

and

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Ripjaw
- Nightwretch
- Reaper

Necrotech & Scrap Thrall

When I gave demo games in Mk1 I always wanted to include a solo in the demo armies too. Well, I think I never gave demo games to players who had no earlier experience with miniature games, so I felt that one model that worked a bit differently than most models wasn't too much.

My "opponent" played with Deneghra's troupe.

He actually played pretty well for a first-timer, instinctively figuring out what a boon knock down effect is for landing shots at normally def 15 bonejacks.

However, one little thing undermined a little this particular demo game.

Times I rolled 6,6,6 or 6,5 or 5,5,6 for damage were a bit too... often. And opponent had more than one persons share of double 1's or otherwise much below average rolls.

Actually I should have lost the game as opponent managed to score one awesome damage roll at Asphyxious with Satyxis Captain, dealing 8 points in.

Then, a round later, Deneghra got a charge at Asphyxious after casting Ghost Walk on herself and upkeeping Crippling Grasp on Asphyxious. Boosted charge attack hit, but dealt only two points of damage. Second attack with a damage boost dealt zero damage. Asphyxious had armor of 17 at that moment as he was camping 3 focus.

Then it was Satyxis Captain's time to win the game and she dealt 5 points of damage in, leaving Asphyxious at 3.

After that Asphyxious just skewered Deneghra, against all odds.

Anyway, the "demoed" one seemed interested about the game despite my disgusting rolls and his equally pitiful rolls, let's just hope this city's scene eventually gets a new player.