Dead-Com: The Plague Unknown

First miniatures are fully painted and based for my probably most ambitious project ever when it comes to little toy soldiers.

I'm converting Deadzone plague miniatures into aliens from X-Com. This was mostly because I didn't like the appearance of Deadzone miniatures all that much, and none of the factions felt quite right for me. And in my long tradition of "playing things as they're not supposed to" I finally decided to start Plague with main focus being on Stage 3 and shooting.

Then I heard that the local Deadzone dealer (first game is always free and you can use my miniatures...) had been planning an X-Com homebrew expansion to Deadzone, and then things clicked. Visual style was then decided upon - X-Com aliens. From the '94 version.

For the moment I'm not looking for actual rules for Deadzone X-Com because I hardly know how to play the basic game. However, the project can be seen right in the Mantic forums, here, for anyone interested. And if there ever will be a playable set of rules, I bet this army conversion project will serve as a nice starting point for playing actual X-Com games.

I don't usually do astonishing conversions to my miniatures, because I don't think I got the needed skills. Or if I got the skills, I don't have the patience - which is quite funny. If someone had a mission to get me really bored, that person would have a hard time accomplishing his goal. But then when it comes to such projects as assembling, painting & overally finishing a miniature, I start rushing and leaving things only half done. Then the end result is usually rather ugly if I've tried to do any big conversions.

So... when I was going to make a Muton out of Stage 3 plague trooper and two Ethereals from two Reaper's cultist miniatures, I had to learn some patience. Every time I have tried to sculpt anything from milliputty or greenstuff in a big way have failed, because I just have to do everything in one go, even if it takes blood, tears and ten hours sitting in front of desk (yeah, in that way I'm patient.)

All in all it took days to finish these miniatures, but it took only a little while to paint them. I forced myself to add epoxy only one appendage at a time, and then leave things to cure overnight.

Results are far from perfect, but to my level of experience I'm quite happy with these. Only Muton's plasma rifle looks utterly ridiculous, and that's probably what I need to train next in the way of putty - making even simple details. Flash was quite unmerciful on the Ethereals, but I think they look nice enough for tabletop play. It's a shame I didn't cover the weird chest-belt with robes when I was still applying epoxy to the Ethereals - somehow I thought that some other detail than reddish orange robe would be welcome. But it wasn't.

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?

Artifice of Intention

A 35 point game of Warmachine, Cryx vs Khador.

My list:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
- Ripjaw
- Nightwretch
- Seether

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
Gorman diWulfe
Skarlock
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Machine Wraith
Satyxis Raider Captain

Khador had:

Epic Irusk
- Juggernaut

Maximum unit of Man-o-War Bombardiers
Maximum unit of Man-o-War Shocktroopers
Minimum unit of Battle Mechaniks + Officer
2x Winter Guard Mortar Crew
Epic Eiryss


Khador got the start, and Tactical Supremacy was cast on Man-o-War Shocktroopers. On Cryx side Skarlock had cast Scything Touch on Satyxis Raiders, and Asphyxious took a flying start by just running with all focus. First picture is taken from the end of Cryx turn 1. Scenario was, by the way, the Process of Elimination.

Next turn Khador mainly advances, and Irusk uses his feat. That was actually rather good choice, since Satyxis could and would have charged everywhere on my next turn.

Mortar fire doesn't do much. Skarlock and Gorman both take a few damage points from blasts, and one bile thrall bites the dust.

Well then it was my rather restricted turn. Satyxis Captain gave Desperate Pace to Raiders, who then advanced and used Power Swell. I was hoping for a little more damage since five Satyxis got within melee range, but only one Man-O-War fell. Well, technically two, because he was knocked down from a succesful Tough roll.

Ripjaw tries to position itself as close to Eiryss as possible, but not within 5" of her. I have done that mistake too many times with my arcnodes.

A lucky Breath of Corruption deviation kills Eiryss soon after, and then Nightwretch tries to damage objective on the left. It succeeds by doing 2 damage.

Next the mechaniks of Khador repair 10 points of damage away from Shocktroopers, so Power Swell achieved even less. Impenetrable wall of armor advances in a straight line, and Artifice of Deviation then blocked any possibility to charge Juggernaut with Seether. Mortars were shooting at bile thralls. One shot missed its target, and deviation brought the blast over Gorman. That was the end of Gorman. I guess he's not my superman any more who survives all attacks, no matter the odds.

Now, this time I really wanted to wipe out the Shocktroopers. First Ripjaw activated and walked close to them. Asphyxious cast Parasite to them. Then a Bile Thrall walked up to use Purge. However, I couldn't position that damnable bile thrall so that only casualty would have been the lone Satyxis. I had to turn it so that rightmost objective and Ripjaw took the acid explosion too. Luckily it didn't break Ripjaw, but on the other hand, it really did nothing to Man-o-Wars either. Only a couple of damage points here and there.

Satyxis Raiders charge Shocktroopers then. Parasite and Chain Weapon reduced their armor effectively to 14, and thanks to Scything Touch the base P+S on Satyxis was 11. So yeah, this time they died, except one who passed two or three Tough rolls. Bile Thrall purge and one Lacerator attack that was directed against Mechanik Officer brought him down to 1 hit box. Oh, and one Satyxis Raider took an awkward charge at Man-o-War Bombardiers just to tie them up a little. This worked suprisingly well, since she one-shotted the Bombardier in question.

Since Seether couldn't do anything productive, I positioned it so that I might next turn start scoring points by destroying rightmost objective.

As it turned out, Khador had pretty much the same plan, except inversed. At the start of turn Mechanik Officer melts down.

Man-o-War Bombardiers with Battle Lust destroy the left objective, but luckily they don't wreck Nightwretch. Battle Mechaniks tie up Satyxis Raiders, and one arrogant wrench-toting jungle creature dared to actually hit Satyxis on the left and kill her. I guess she took a little too long to savor her personal victory, and never saw that wrench hitting the back of her head...

I don't remember any more what killed Satyxis Raider Sea Witch. I can only hope it wasn't those charging Mechaniks...!

Then Artifice of Deviation blocked Seether's charge, again... I really started to miss Ghost Walk or Veil of Mists during this match!

Then it was Cryx turn. I was starting to fear that I would actually lose attrition and scenario, so I decided to try assassination and, failing that, try to claim rightmost control zone.

Satyxis Raider Captain charged the Bombardier who was engaging Nightwretch, and she succeeded to dismember the guy in the suit well enough for Nightwretch to run within 10" of Irusk.

Then Seether charges to objective, but it rolls abysmal damage rolls. So I really want to succeed at the assassination, now. However, before that the co-joined efforts of all remaining Satyxis and Ripjaw manage to bring the last remaining Shocktrooper down.

Asphyxious activates. He has 6 focus remaining. I decide I will try the risky way, and shoot unboosted Hellfire at Irusk. Miss. Asphyxious repeats all of this. Even the "miss" part. Looking back, maybe I should have just tried two fully boosted Hellfires, but I was certain that at least even one out of all tries would hit and I could boost the damage roll. Not today, Iron Lich, not today. Asphyxious charges objective and does annoyingly little damage. Then Asphyxious uses his feat and I try one last unboosted Hellfire at Irusk. Miss.

Then I just buy two extra attacks against objective, and with last two remaining focus Asphyxious casts Teleport to move into better position. The extra attacks? Naah, they didn't do much. After a charge attack and three attacks from Seether and one charge attack and two attacks from Asphyxious, the objective was still standing defiantly.

I'm starting to get a little desperate, so even bile thralls try to shoot the thing with their sprays. I don't remember if they did anything.

And last, but not least, even Skarlock activates and casts Hellfire on the objective! This was literally the last possible attack against it, and failing this it would be a certain scenario defeat to me.

A heavy stone fell from my shoulders when the damage roll was actually above average, and the objective was destroyed.

So... the ARM20, 15 damage boxes objective took:
One point of corrosion damage.
P+S 16 +3d6, 2x P+S 16 + 2d6 and 3x P+S 12 +2d6.
P+S 15 + 3d6, 2x P+S 15 +2d6 and POW 14 +2d6.
... before it was destroyed. I really could have used those resources somewhere else, too...

Opponent doesn't have too much of a trouble clearing left control zone, so this Khadoran turn victory points would come to 3-3.

Mortars shoot all the Satyxis and Mechaniks away, as well as one of the bile thralls.

Juggernaut charges Ripjaw, but misses charge attack. But even the slap of an open fist wrecks Ripjaws movement system.

Bombardiers charge Nightwretch and one of them hits (and crits), but doesn't wreck the thing. If memory serves, the Arc-Node is gone, however.

Then Cryx turn starts.

And the most dreadful thing that can happen in a miniature game (apart from cat-accident) happened: A dispute.

This is how things started: Ripjaw advances so that Seether can attempt a charge against Juggernaut. Then it does Armor Piercing attack and scores some damage. Asphyxious charges Juggernaut (behind Ripjaw) and wastes all of his Focus into attacks and boosts, but doesn't manage to wreck the thing.

Skarlock runs to contest leftmost zone. Bile Thrall advances so that purge hits Nightwretch, Juggernaut and two Man-o-Wars (pretty much doing nothing against all of them).

Then when Seether activates and I declare a charge against Juggernaut, opponent informs that Juggernaut was supposed to be a little farther away attacking Ripjaw, but the model wouldn't have balanced on the downward sloping trench.

The opponent is an honest fellow and I didn't have (and still don't) have any reason to doubt that this was the actual intention. It hadn't, however, been told during Juggernauts activation, so to me the positioning looked like a conscious risk of getting in a charge from Seether, as I wasn't observing so meticulously what the maximum charge distance for Juggernaut would've been. The 5" AoE is Artifice of Deviation, so it was really so-and-so if charge for Seether would've been feasible or even within the boundaries of reality if Juggernaut would have stood a little further.

In a friendly game I'm not against take-backs even to this extent, but the problem here was that I would've probably planned my turn totally different if there had been no real chance of trying a charge with Seether. First of all, I could've ran to contest left zone with Seether instead, and cast Scything Touch on Asphyxious with Skarlock. Also I would've probably tried to cast Parasite on it too to make most out of the limited number of attacks I had at my disposal - now I had just to bring it down with the number of attacks, because I always had Grab & Smash coming from Seether.

In the end Seether got to make its charge (and continuing my trend of low damage rolls didn't do enough damage to wreck it) and threw the model away from control zone, and scenario points gave the victory to Cryx.

Endings like this, however, leave a little sour feeling. I know that this is the way things would have played, for example, in a tournament. But still it makes me feel that I got a victory because of a positioning mistake that actually wasn't even "real", just an illusion. Also, because of the things mentioned above, if I had lost because I accepted undeclared intention as a fact, I would've probably felt a little cheated out of victory, too.

In a way it was a lose-lose situation, probably for the both of us.

But still it was very exciting game up until this slightly sorry ending. But such things happen, nothing you can do about it, except to do everything perfectly always and in any given situation. And I doubt that's possible for anyone.

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 Second Take at Organising Something

Last weekend Fantasiapelit did a Warmachine tournament at Levels(a local con).

As earlier, (I'm getting crazy with linking, it seems) I was asked to be the tournament organiser, because staff still hasn't been initiated into the joys and wonders of this game.

I'm not exactly a good organiser or anything, and being responsible for everything would have been too much for me, but a small, compact (maximum of 10 players) tournament just might be within range of my possibility... could it?

First, there was a lot more interest than I would've thought. There was a larger Warmachine event in neighboring country that was bound to draw a lot of players away from Finnish meta (which isn't really that big in the first place).

Since I wanted to make tournament easily accessible even to beginners, I took away just about all fancy list building rules and tournament point values was 35.

This meant there were no:
- Specialists
- Divide & Conquer
- Character Restrictions

And 1-2 lists allowed, plus casual death clock limits. There wasn't too much usable time, so it'd been possible to either run 4 rounds with insane hurry, or 3 rounds still with a hurry, but at least more time for actual playing. If there is enough time, I don't see a reason why not to use more casual time limits.

I mean, I understand game time limits in tournament, they're a good tool to make tournament rounds to actually move forward. But there is few things that are more depressing than to actually have to end the game because time runs out. Thus, always more times to deathclock if schedule allows.

But then about the tournament itself.

History almost repeated itself when 3 players called off their participation the day before tournament, but with a struggle we still got 8 players in. And I guess it was a major boon to have 8 players, it'd mean we'd get an uncontested winner at the end of 3rd round, which may not have been the case with 10 players.

Since I was the 8th player, I got to play too.

And I felt that this was a perfect place to get in more games with Kaya the Wildborne against various opponents, since I wouldn't be able to actually win any prizes.

My two lists were: (And what sorcery is this... here in midst of my papers were an army list of Space Marines?!)


List 1:

Kaya the Wildborne
- Warpwolf Stalker
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gorax

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper
Lord of the Feast

List 2:
Kaya the Wildborne
- Pureblood Warpwolf
- Gnarlhorn Satyr
- Scarsfell Griffon
- Gorax

Tharn Bloodweavers
Shifting Stones
Blackclad Wayfarer
Druid Wilder
Tharn Ravager White Mane

Actual write-ups will come later when I've edited the pictures with my amazing digital editing skills.

A little painting update

Pictures in the last gaming write-up are so atrocious in quality that I needed to quickly make a new blog entry with better photos to push the horror down.

Well, not really.

Rather, I'm trying to motivate myself to paint just a little bit more actively now. I finished painting two gaming pieces, well, technically yesterday.

They're Sara the Bright Witch and Jack Fellows the Privateer for A Touch of Evil.

This time, though picture is sharp enough, it didn't focus right. But I guess it still shows the most important thing: these gaming pieces are finished from toe to hair.

Now, there is something else in the picture.

Years ago (almost ten years, actually. Damn time flies!) I bought Games Workshop walls for terrain. They've been in extensive use during various times in my career as a wargamer.

However, when I got my filthy little hands upon the plastic walls & fences terrain set, these wall pieces dropped out entirely from gaming boards.

First, they're BIG. For linear obstacles at least. Linear obstacles you can get from "new" plastic set are so much better for Warmachine/Hordes, because there is next to no attempt to balance models on the scenery pieces base. And that is good, it's clear to everyone that "no, you can't stand on top of this fence". These old walls are all clumsy and awkward.

Second, they're a bit out of place. Most of these old walls have either something iconic (imperial eagles on ammo crates) or too science fictionish elements going on. For a reason it bugs me.

Third, they're "ugly". By ugly I mean that they have a dull palette, and because there is pre-glued grass in there it creates the feeling that they're "ready to use". And as such they're a bore.

Some unknown impulse struck me a while ago, and I picked up the two wall pieces from this particular set that had no problems mentioned in second pointer. Then I painted them to break the monotoneous colors, removing much of problems mentioned in third pointer.

By making some of the reinforcements to appear wooden (though their texture looks very much metallic, but hey... it's what you paint it to be, not what it looks like to be without paint) I attempted to make the walls fit a little bit better to Iron Kingdoms. At least I find it unlikely that there would be SO much refined scrap metal pieces around to construct improvised full-metal walls.

Ah well.

Oh, and the third wall piece in picture is a non-retouched wall piece from same terrain set, just for comparison.

A Touch of the Coast

I finally got my filthy hands upon the new expansion for A Touch of Evil: The Coast.

And, truth be told, the more I look around, the more I'm enthusiastic about the expansion. It's more than just "another playing board" that offers nothing actually new to the game if you already own Something Wicked.

No, this one has loads of stuff crammed in.

First, of course, the Hauntings. Hauntings add yet another sweet, supernatural layer to the game. They are manifestations of vengeful spirits that may or may not be in league with the Villain. They are kind of... totally separate things. Like mini-Villains. They're not minions, so they don't stop Heroes movements any way, and there can even be a minion and a haunting in the same space.

Rewards for banishing Hauntings are generally awesome, though they usually just detract you from the main focus - Villain.

New coastal village, Tidewater, functions wonderfully different than the actual Shadowbrook town, too. Instead of drawing events you draw village encounters, which can be good or bad or just... something. I bet they make the village feel alive.

Board, Hero and Villain art are yet again top-notch. Flying Frog has really found the perfect artistic style for this game. Very Tim Burtonesque, and still sets the mood.

New Secrets for town elders looked promising and fun (two that really made an impression were one where Town Elder became stark-raving mad, and one where a lycanthrope has bitten him or her.)

Well, these thing came from the top of my head. At least with a quick look The Coast looks like it's a little bit better expansion than Something Wicked, though my philosophy regarding expansions to games I own is "the more the merrier!"

Flag them!

I was going to do a separate write up earlier for markers and templates I made for tournament, but I managed to do less than I was going to.

What I did get done, however, were a couple of flags for scenario play.

Finally no more random light warjacks or warcasters lending their bases for flaggy goodness.

The little kid from Nightmare finally found her place in middle of two coffins labeled as "Mommy" and "Daddy".

Then next flag objective, I believe, needs no explanation.

When that pesky elven rascal goes around and leaves those infantile little notes everywhere, you just have to go and tear it off. Preferably you'll also control it so such vandalism doesn't happen again.

"Who needs 50% of players, anyway?"

Yesterday the 25-point Warmachine/Hordes tournament was held which I was talking about in my last post.

It really was an experience.

This city is pretty much in the centre of Finland. And somewhat hilariously it seems that most of the Warmachine activity in this country is around coasts and borders, which means that, in fact, Jyväskylä is far away from other players.

Now, it still managed to spark enough interest to hope for around 10 participants, give or take a few.

As the date came nearer and nearer, more people got something in their way, whether it was due to work schedules, travels away from Jyväskylä and travel costs TO Jyväskylä. A few days before tournament date there was 7 participants, so either it'd be a 8-player tournament if we got a suprise player from one of the local hobbyists, or only a 6-player event with me dropping out.

Starting on the morning of the event, one of the players reported he had got sick, so it looked like it'd be a 6-player event with me stepping in. Well, no biggie, since most important thing here was to activate local players and get them, for once, actually see each other.


Well, then we started the tournament, though one player was late. Random pairings made me to take the "bye" with late player.

After first round it was quite unlikely that this player would come for later rounds either, though I couldn't reach him to confirm this. I hope there is nothing more serious to this other than "whoopsie, overslept".

However, it was a 5-player event after that, then.

I asked if either of the players who scored no tournament points during first round wanted to take the "bye" next round, and one player did.

He did take the "bye" on last round too, because he wasn't actually all that motivated right now to play multiple games in somewhat short time.

So, it was a 4-player even after that, then.

Now, I guess it wasn't too bad after all. Games got played and people got to play against different armies they've used to. Hopefully next time a crapload of players won't drop out in such a short time.

There was a little talk about league and such, which might fit better this very active player base of Jyväskylä.

I'll write up my actual two games during event at some later time.

Being a semi-TO

Well, things are nearing their completion.

On next weekend Jyväskylä's gaming shop Fantasiapelit will hold a Warmachine/Hordes tournament. The staff doesn't actually play Warmachine themselves, so they needed a tournament organizer who was experienced enough for the job.

Well, I really don't know if description fits me, but we'll see that next Saturday.

Here in local area I guess I've been the most active player and trekked through various tournaments that have been held in this country, if situation has allowed it for me.

However, I don't feel quite comfortable in any sort of boots of authority. This will be a completely new experience for me in this area of hobby. Luckily I won't be responsible for absolutely everything, since the gaming shop actually organises the event and has tables, terrain and whatnot there. So my role will mostly just be to act as the TO when there is a need for one, for example in rulings, and the tournament rules have been created by me.

Because in this area there are quite a few starting and/or seldom playing participants I tried to modify Steamroller rules a bit to take these things into account.

For example, first scenario will be just plain caster kill with Killbox artifice, with first tiebreaker being the warlock/warcaster who has taken least damage when round ends is the winner.

Two other rounds are Gauntlet and Incursion.

Well, I guess even if I fail completely when it comes to resolving disputes during games, organising something like this made me do some productive things.

For example, I found a few plastic sheets from my apartment and cut 'em up as 6"x8" Gauntlet scenario templates. Also my long-time frozen flag/whatever 40mm objective markers took a step forward in being progressed. I doubt I will finish their painting unless I'll be bitten by a crazy inspiration mosquito, but at least they will be something else than proxied medium base models. Though one flag in Incursion will be a Sentry Stone from Circle, but I think that's a pretty good flag marker, actually. At least no-one will mix it up with anything playable.

At the moment it looks like event will be either 8 players or 10 players, depending on a couple of uncertain players.

So.

I'm looking at next Saturday with both excitement and pure dread.

Spycraft in a cyberworld... why not?

Finally some random writings.

Some time ago I got two expansions for When Darkness Comes.

I bought Spycraft and This Is Not Happening... boxes. Though Spycraft is somewhat of a stand-alone game.

Considering the price tag I guess I didn't do a good trade, because I'm more interested in the horror theme of When Darkness Comes. I can mostly mix and match elements from both sets to the original.

However, the new elements seem actually quite nice and will surely expand the gaming experience of When Darkness Comes. For instance, there will be a good pool of outside encounters now in the form of vehicles, civilians, "foil", street encounters and even human thugs. Also monsters from This Is Not Happening look like they will fit right in, except for the weird techno ball. Traps from the same expansion also look good and refreshing change of pace if included in horror setting. Who knows what kind of dark magics and such are present when there are undead around?

I hope these will, in a way, fix the problem of streets being mostly "safe zones".

One thing I consider is making adversaries from This Is Not Happening to work like those from Nameless Mist. That would make Willpower more of a game element than just a curiosity.

Also PSI from This Is Not Happening needs to be converted to Willpower, probably.

Now I'm only missing the two "main" expansions. I wonder if I'll actually get them ever if this games goes out of print or something soon. There hasn't been support for it for ages...

Tournamenting

Last weekend I was visiting the Ropecon gaming convention that had quite a few Warmachine tournaments. I took part in two of them, a 50-point character restricted main tournament with 3 lists, and 25 point modified Mangled Metal (5 minute turns, and 2 points could be spend on any models, be it solos or even units)

I'm not starting the game write-ups just yet, but I'm writing down my lists here for ease of reference during writing.

So, in main tournament I had the following 50-point lists using Cryx:

List 1: The Swift Scissors

Warwitch Deneghra (+5)
- Erebus
- Ripjaw
- Nightwretch
- Nightwretch
- Helldiver
- Helldiver

Min Bane Thralls
Min Bile Thralls
Min Soulhunters
Bloat Thrall
Skarlock
2x Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
2x Pistol Wraith

Reinforcements:
Minimum Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Satyxis Raider Captain
Machine Wraith


List 2: A Fistful of Rock

Master Necrotech Mortenebra & Deryliss (+4)
- Harrower
- Slayer
- Nightmare
- Ripjaw
- Stalker

Min Bile Thralls
Max Mechanithralls + 1x Brute Thrall
Necrotech & Scrap Thrall
Machine Wraith
Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor
2x Warwitch Siren

List 3: The Paper Tiger

Lord Exhumator Scaverous (+5)
- Malice
- Seether
- 2x Nightwretch
- Ripjaw

Max Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Withershadow Combine
Bane Lord Tartarus
Gorman diWulfe
Skarlock

I chose my warcasters pretty much from the play count from my spreadsheets and the time it has been since I played with these casters. I wrote reinforcements only to Deneghra's list here, because she was the only caster I played a reinforcement scenario with.

And then the 25 point Mangled Metal with 2 freebie points tournament was one-list only. My choice was a bit weird one:

Venethrax (+6)
- Reaper
- Slayer
- Cankerworm
- Ripjaw
- Stalker
- Helldiver

+Machine Wraith

He didn't actually fare all that badly, really... But enough for now.

More to come during this week.

"But... this wasn't supposed to be out yet!" (Talisman)

Whoa.

Just before I went to watch Dark Shadows (good enough movie, by the way, though some things in it hurt like a ballpoint pencil through your frontal lobe) I went to local gaming shop.

There it was, The Blood Moon expansion for Talisman.

I didn't exactly have the money right now, but I still had to buy it.

I'm not sure if it was all the currency, but it looks like a nice change of game. Not as huge as Dragon, but not as lame as Ice Queen or Sacred Pool.

I'd also rate it to be a little bit better than Reaper, because it's a lot more common to face Werewolf even in just two player games.

A big complain, however, comes from the fact that there isn't big enough drawback of being a lycanthrope. You have to attack another player instead of encountering space when you enter a space where already is a player. Bonus being that, pretty much in all intent and purposes, you fight any enemy during day. Even if it's night.

I only quickly skimmed through spells and didn't actually even look at adventure cards.

Miniatures, again, get a big plus. They look very indeed when considered they're for a board game and made from cheap plastic.

Chronicles test run

Well, now.

Since the main developer of Chronicles actually had the time and interest to dig up my little blog thingy here, it inspired me to give a solo test run of the introductory adventure. It's actually rather easy with the aid of Vassal and the Warmachine & Hordes module I already had.

So, I created a three member party with following details:

Human Flame Wizard (with Improved Fireball) & Performer
Elf Hunter (with Sword Fighter)
Human Swordsman (with Defensive Stance)

Points: 16

Oh, and here was the first "judgement call" I had to make. Defensive Stance reads "You gain +2 to your FS value when defending", but the problem is that "defending" is also a game term meaning that you make no attack and gain defense bonuses. The other choice, offensive stance, on the other hand gives +2 FS when attacking. What you should always be doing anyway. I'm quite sure that for balance reasons Defensive Stance should give +2 FS when being attacked by an enemy in melee.

Also, a word about my adventuring party. Since I dislike "autoincludes" very highly regardless of a gaming system I wanted to test out a party without a healer. If game cannot be reasonably played without a dedicated healer, something's wrong.

That's why I chose defensive stance and sword fighter with elf hunter, to give them better survivability.

Anyway.

First scenario in "A New Start" was a piece of cake.

Only Swordsman took damage (8 - and even that was a result of nasty critical hit) and flame wizard had to use 7 skill points and elf hunter 5. Treasure rolled from d6 table was 10 gold pieces.

I did this "AI" to goblins that archers always shot the nearest target and as many goblins ganged up in melee as possible against one single target, because they seemed to me like things cliché fantasy goblins would do.

I was re-reading the rules for skill points now, and noticed that even damage rolls could be modified with skill points. I don't like that at all, so I decided to skip it in this test run entirely. Modifying dice rolls is heck of a powerful ability, and at least after the first scenario modifying damage rolls seemed too big of a help for players.

Story continues to village of Alden Crossing, where flame wizard rolls 25 gold coins for him with Performer defining trait. I guess the small community hadn't seen much magic lately.

Well, then the party entered second scenario with the Goblin Shaman as a boss.

This one was actually entertaining match!

I used same AI for goblin warriors and archers, but for shaman I decided that if it could see a model with no magic defense, it would shoot at it. Otherwise just the closest target.

This time swordsman had to use healing potion (well, the goblin shaman scored a critical against him...) and still took 10 points of damage. Hunter had to spend 5 skill points and took 6 damage. Flame wizard used a whopping 11 skill points, as he needed to shoot the goblin shaman with improved fireball a lot.

Treasure rolled was a red potion, which was allocated to swordsman.

Gem that was goblin shaman's treasure was 30 coins worth. I split gold so that I randomised the one who got the gem and divided other loot with rest two party members.

The search for copper necklace I handled so that everyone rolled search & detection and the item was randomised between all who succeeded. Flame wizard got the thing, and frankly he needed it the most.

The reason why I'm randomising some of these things is that I'm not playing a role playing game here - I'm playing a tabletop game that has heavy RPG influences. Randomising acts for me as some sort of simulated selfishness and character for player characters.

Now, when I continued storyline, next scenario looked like fun as my adventuring party had used most of their resources during last fight. There was no chance to rest, it looked like.

However, it was a fast and not-so-exciting battle. Captain is way too powerful ally, since he hits goblins on 4+ and kills them if he rolls at least 2+ on 1d6. And even if he rolls 1 for damage, the goblin survives with 1 hit point only if it rolls a 3 for defense on 1d3. There was no challenge whatsoever in this battle scene. Maybe that was because Captain is actually a 13 point character, but was listed as a 5 point ally. That would have meant 4 goblin warriors more.

My suggestion here would be that this scenario has a third type of enemy and maybe a little harsher penalty for losing running/jumping check. Maybe not being able to make attacks during first turn.

Anyway, after scenario ended Elf Hunter had taken 3 damage (used one potion) and used 5 skill points. Captain had taken two damage points. Swordsman had taken six damage (used one potion) and flame wizard had used 10 skill points (had drunk the blue potion he got from last scenario's shaman boss)

After getting back to town two characters had enough gold to take advantage of Captains generous offer. Swordsman took Shield Block and Flame Wizard trained Wall of Fire.

Then adventures got a free night and feast for saving up the village. Swordsman didn't have a good nights sleep I guess, because he rolled only 3 for healing.

Next adventures would be made with a 19 point party, then.

Now, what can I say.

At least that much that the rule system has a lot of potential. There seems to be a little bit too much "kiddie gloves" built into the system, which is good enough if you aim for a survival of the characters and getting immersed in their personality and, well, playing their "role". But when you look into that with the eyes of a tabletop gamer, being able to modify damage roll after rolling the dice and being able to save yourself from a critical fail by just spending skill points does seem "too easy".

A word about Chronicles

I'm a frequent visitor to Tabletopgamingnews, because it's a handy site that gives a broad overview of what's happening in the tabletop industry.

Today I noticed an interesting project - an Open Source Skirmish RPG called Chronicles. Usually I'm not too interested in "homebrew" stuff, but this one has a lot of people involved and the possibilities Chronicles has got me intrigued.

I will be keeping an eye on this project, at least I want to see the core book II and a couple of adventure "modules" before I make up my mind if I'm totally fascinated by it or is my interest some idle curiosity.

What sparks me in Chronicles is that it combines elements of tabletop wargaming and role playing games. Battle scenes are done with the miniature scenery you've grown used to, and battles are scaled to use inches. Characters can progress, which is nice. What I'd like to see is that they could be permanently injured, too. Maybe they can if it's something Core Book II offers.

However, what I dislike is the need for a "game master". Well, rulebook stresses that you don't actually need one, but at least as-it-is the game looks ill-suited for play without the game master. Adversaries and adventures plot advancement isn't "scripted" well enough.

That can be a thing adventure "modules" correct. If the design team releases adventures that require zero GM input, this thing starts to look like a cooperative tabletop skirmish wargame with some kind of plot and character advancement, which sounds awesome in my books.

Well, these were the thoughts on this nice looking project.

Link to the homepage of the project is in the second paragraph of this post, in case someone became interested and overlooked it.

When Expansion Comes

I got two copies of When Darkness Comes expansions today that I had ordered through local gaming shop, Fantasiapelit.

I don't usually write too much reviews or things like that, but right now I'm in the mood for that.

As I said, I got two expansions. First was The Horror Within, and the second one was The Nameless Mist.

First, the packaging sucked. But I guess they had in mind keeping the expansion sets rather cheap. But still it just looked plain bad and messed up, when rulebook and expansion tiles formed a sandwich that had a pewter figure filling, all wrapped up in plastic and not in very neat way.

However, Nameless Mist looked a lot more professional, though still the packaging looked ugly. But at least there was a small, colored "paperback" covering up the insides.

But enough of that, you don't play with actual packaging.

Once you open up the expansion, you can actually see a huge rise in quality over the base game. Rulebooks both look a lot more durable than the leaflets that look like print-outs, which came with the base game.

Now.

What I specifically look into, is expandability and how things work together. As much as I'm a statistics freak, I'm a megalomaniac collector who wants the games to be a huge mess of rules that just happen to work together.

My dream is to have a good home-brewn non-GM run semi-campaign system for When Darkness Comes. And that in mind I looked into the scenarios, additional rules and additional disks.

Scenarios for non-GM run games in The Horror Within look both plenty and nice. Though I didn't read them thoroughly except maybe for the first one, they left a nice impression that they were nicely different. Which should read: totally different.

Line of Sight rules have no problem whatsoever in incorporating them into "the Big Game". Probably because they were designed to expang the basic rules, heh.

But things in the Nameless Mist expansion look a bit more difficult to fit into this collection of The Awakening + The Horror Within.

First, the disks that come with the set have a lot more refined graphics in them. But that's only a minor detail.

However, at the moment I lack the actual Willpower rules. Sure, I can download them from the official website which I probably have to do, but I'd like to have a physical copy of them in my hands too, with all the disks and whatnot that come with the expansion.

That much said, I'm sure it will be entertaining enough to use only partial willpower rules, it makes a couple of new adversaries interesting and different from the base game's adversaries!

Now, at least 3 of the 4 new allies look good enough to be put straight into the base game. But security and item discs pose a real problem... it makes little sense for these Cthulhuesque "security" members to wander around in towns, guarding a café of something. They might need some house-ruling not to break the "illusion".

Items, then. As of now they are kind of a waste. Once I'll get complete Willpower rules I'm sure they'll be usable, but as of now adding them to base game would just dilute meaningful encounters. One Elder Sign and both Black Lotuses could see some use if I take enough new adversaries and house rule some of the security disks into the game, but otherwise no-one wants Necronomicon when they can get the Shotgun.

But the book items have Search values of 3S, 3K and 4S, so they could be substituted to some scenario items instead of the uglyish numbered disks.

And last thing: the tiles. Nothing to say here, really. They all fit in and don't look too much "off" from the base games tiles. Miskatonic University campus with all the small buildings is a nice change of tile design and thus may look a bit weird in the middle of town, but really, nothing wrong there.

I guess this was all.

Year 2011 in painting

So, I made a new year's resolution to beat my last years painting. Today is the last day to take a look on that.

My new years resolution for 2011 had an extra clause: I was to go to a tournament using Circle of Orboros. I went to Ropecon warmachine/hordes tournament, so I succeeded there.

Now, a summary of my paintings:

Cryx:
Lord Exhumator Scaverous
Ripjaw
Reaper/Slayer/Malice/Erebus magnetised kit
3x Scrap Thralls
"Baselift", meaning repainting bases to look a bit nicer.

Mercenaries:
Ragman

Skorne:
Dominar Rasheth
Rhinodon
Cyclops Shaman
6x Cataphract Cetrati
4x Praetorian Swordmen
Aptimus Marketh
Extoller Soulward
Flayer Cannon

Circle of Orboros:
Wold Guardian
Woldwatcher
Reeve Hunter
Tharn Ravager Chieftain
Stone Keeper

Minions:
Thrullg
Totem Hunter
Lanyssa Ryssyll

Scenery:
Couple of barrel obstacles
Overturned pillar
Three pieces of craters
Pond

Other:
6x When Darkness Comes miniatures
6x Talisman miniatures

Now, last year I painted only two heavy warjacks/warbeasts and Wurmwood, that were on large base. This year I painted five.

Last year I painted only two medium based models too, but they were both warcasters: Lich Lords Venethrax & Asphyxious. This year I painted thirteen of them. Nice gain there.

2010 seemed to be the year of small based models, as I painted 25 of them. Now there will be some tough competition, let's see... Only fourteen of them this year. But as I had a nice surplus from medium based models, it seems that I painted quite a bit more Warmachine/Hordes models this year.

Other models, then.

Board-game sized playing pieces weren't written up in too much detail in 2010, so I guess that I painted around 20 Talisman & Touch of Evil miniatures.

This year I did only 12 of such pieces, but I'm quite sure that terrain pieces I did this year make up for at least 8 tiny miniatures.

I think I can say that I succeeded in my new years resolution.

I'll refrain myself from making a resolution for 2012, because looks like it will be quite a busy year. But I'd like to get to play Talisman & Touch of Evil a little more.

Even later night gathering

The family I was visiting, being somewhat enthusiastic Magic: The Gathering -players convinced me to have a go with a 3-player multiplayer game.

A couple of years back I had been playing Magic: The Gathering too, so it wasn't really a problem, when only a brief update on changed rules was needed.

Anyway, I see no real point in giving a short detailed write-up of the game, as I played with a deck I don't own and can't remember the names of the cards that were involved...

Except that I didn't win, heh.

But I can tell a little bit of a story about... statistics.

In a former relationship we both got hooked up on Magic: The Gathering. And as both of us liked such statistics, we had a whole little world of Magic: The Gathering meta going on... we wanted to construct a two-colour deck of each combination, plus a one-colour deck (but that came in only later...)

Then we had a sheet where there was marked game statistics of every deck versus every deck.

We even made these "tournaments", where every deck played once against every deck, and the one that scored most would win such tournament. And, of course we marked up the winners of every tournament (red/green was an unequaled master).

Oh, those were the days.

But surely I don't miss how much money went into that stuff.

Dual infected

All kinds of nasty things has happened lately. Obviously new field of study makes it difficult to be all social and energetic enough to go and arrange games. I've managed to paint a couple When Darkness Comes miniatures, though.

Last weekend I got rather ill, it's funny as I don't get sick very often. And now it just came and ravaged me in a couple of days. Today has been a day of hellish pain in my throat whenever I cough up, but otherwise I guess I'm good enough to get going next day.

Also, as I got infected, my laptop got infected too. If I had to guess, I got the infection from Tabletop Gaming News -website, that had apparently been hacked. I guess this is the main thing of my posting. Also, Privateer Press had closed its forums because of some security issues. Is there a big virtual attack going on against the miniature hobby? Heh. Probably not, more likely we're collateral damage.

Yet I'm a bit worried how I will manage to do some of my stuff I have made into some sort of a habit on the internet.

Anyway, both my laptop being under quarantine until I get to save personal files and reformat the whole thing and me being sick, it has given me a bit of free time on other stuff.

As I've been painting When Darkness Comes -miniatures I've also kept some terrain close by to add in details if the current palette makes it possible. Such multitasking usually feels like a horrible chore, but somehow today it felt like casual, nice, relaxing thing to do. Probably because the WDC playing pieces are less detailed than in actual miniature games, so you just add paint as you feel like it without stressing about some insane detail.

Continuing Slayer/Reaper/Malice with Erebus

Well, I bought the Erebus upgrade kit. And wanted to magnetise it.

However, it was a lot more... adventurous thing than making a soul swirl base for Malice. The loin cloth and shoulder thingies were difficult to magnetise, and in the end, I didn't magnetise the shoulder stuff.

I toyed with the shoulder things, first I was thinking that maybe I could thin the metal parts enough to slot them steadily to recesses between torso and shoulders. Well, didn't really work, but then I wondered how I would do if I put some wire to them.

Until my cloud castle falls down, they seem to be easily detached and inserted, and don't drop from use.

Loincloth was a nasty one, too. I put a magnet into Slayer torso's butt and then put quite a lot of milliputty to the loincloth and placed a magnet there too, but had to fix its position so that the loincloth wouldn't snap to the magnet on to the torso vertically.

Anyway, after some work (painting obviously was the fastest part, the Slayer could transform into Erebus. And back, if needed.