Thursday, January 28, 2010

MKII Battle Reports

I have now played 4 games of MKII 2 with Mercs which i promptly Lost, thus proving that I hate Mercs a lot. And I'm 1-1 with my Cryx.

The first game was Me vs Ellen in Merc v Merc action. She took Shae and I took Ashlyn. On the top of turn 2, Shae popped feat, laid a torrent out on my Risen, which allows her guys to charge through them and ignore them. Walls gave the Sea Dogs boosted melee attack rolls, and Hawk Ran up next to Ashlynn. Then Walls called for No Quarter and 2 sea dogs made it into melee with Ashlynn, who was less than 1 inch outside my deployment zone. They swing at MAT 7 3D6, and then go for Damage at P+S 10 4d6 then POW 12 2D6. The two jerk offs easily dispatched Ashlynn before her second turn. That was the only model of mine that died that game. Just ridiculous. This is why I hate squishy casters.

Second Game we played because the first game was over too quick. It was Magnus vs Fiona. I started off by killing all off Boomhowlers guys and a few solo's, but couldn't deal with the 5 steelhead cav that she took. *Side Note* Steelhead Cav are great even without halberdiers to back them up. They eventually got solid impact hits on my infantry and charged through into my Renegades and took both of their rockets off. Unfortunate to say the least, I tried the assassination run and did ok, but wasn't able to kill her. last ditch was the Dwarf hobbling up as close as he could get to try and burn her down with his flame thrower. i lit her on fire, but it went out, had she stayed alight she would most likely have died. ARM 14 with 4 wounds remaining

But Screw Mercs! Im a cryx Player

First game was against Mike's E-Hailey List, I took Skarre with a butt load of infantry. Things went very well when he failed to kill any Satyxis raiders with his Cyclone. I Backlashed it, and sent the ladies in and hit all my attacks dropping Hailey to 2 or 3 life on those hits. My big mistake came when i tried to Sac Strike a member of the Black 13, i was planning on using MKI version of sac strike, and was quite unhappy to find I couldn't use it. So now Skarre was in a bad spot too close to the enemy for no reason. On his attack Mike wasn't able to clear out enough stuff fast enough to bring all his attacks to bear on skarre and she lived through his turn. We called it there since Hailey was in my face with 2 life and Skarre had 10 focus.

Second Game was E-Skarre vs E-Stryker. I originally made the list for the coven, but I can't seem to want to field them these days, they kinda suck. E-Skarre isn't much better. I did find an awesome combo in Black-Spot + Thresher, but as it dawned on my how strong it is, I had already wiped out what I could kill except 1 model who took 5 Black Spot attacks. I was able to hound striker with a Leviathan, (which is a fantastic Jack in MKII) I think I had him down to 4 life, but I was fighting a losing battle from the get go. My Revenant Died Quick, I forgot the AOE order from the Gun mages and that cost me my Satyxis. My Jacks were pretty damn good that game, but Eventually on Strikers Feat Turn a Stormclad was able to track Skarrer down and whack her with a POW 18, and since he feat requires her to take 5 damage to use, (Really Lame!) she was at half life when it hit her... game over.

I was close against Striker, Mike did manage to shoot off the harrowers gun early which may have saved him, I think i would have needed an 11 on damage to kill. One turn I had a shot at him, but missed needing a 7. The leviathan was funny he missed like all but 1 of his shots each turn, but then rolled really good damage on the shot that hit. He was a tough bum to get through. Regular Skarre is very different than she was, no longer just hold up and thwack someone with a boosted pow 20. Raiders and Backlash are really strong for her, and I think she can support a Heavy or 2 in most cases.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Firestorm Battle Report

Before I begin I would like to say my ships came in the mail earlier this week and I have them primed and fully assembled.

So Mike in his quest to find a faction that fits his play style tried the Aqueans last night. We played our starter fleets plus a carrier and a dozen fighters. Our fleets are both poor at long range combat so our initial steps were moving into position. He struck first dropping a Frigate. We continued to maneuver for a while or so until about turn 3 when my cruisers made their way out from behind an Asteroid field and opened fire. I crit one of mikes cruisers, rolled 1,1 and it went nuclear. critting his other ship causing a raging fire, and damaging his last cruiser. Our battle ships traded blows, but we were both holding repair cards and brought them back up almost to full life. But on the following turn his battle ship wedged itself into my fleet, and unleased a massive amount of firepower that was totally ineffective. his dice had failed him on this exchange. My battle ship spun into place shot its full payload and I crit his battle ship once again rolling 1,1. At this point the game turned into clean up. I started to hound his ships as they maneuvered around the board. In the End his last squad of Frigates and his carrier tried to flee the field, but Mercy was not mine to grant. My only failing on the day a lone fighter made it off the board before I could send a dozen of my own fighters to burn his ass down.

Bit time win for Sorylians, which is nice since the last two games where I had any advantage it was wiped out by my opponent rolling 1,1 or 6,6 on my battle ship. My only problem with the game at this point is that there is a 1/18 chance you lose your battleship on the first shot. And for some reason we like rolling 1,1 in my play group. I think next game we will experiment with a modified version of the crit table. Also the cards do basically nothing to prevent the 1,1 crit.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

MKII Prime Review

So I've had this book about 2 weeks and this morning on the Metro i finished the Khador Section and now I have read pretty much the whole book. I'm far too lazy to read everything in the book, But I'm confident I can give it a decent review.

The Art work in this book is pretty darn good. The style of P.P's artists seem to change book to book. I'm not positive but based entirely off what I've seen I would say all 3 prime books have different artists. The style here is slightly cartoony and I can see that being unappealing to some. But Personally I think a few characters have never been drawn better. Vlad and Sorcha come to mind. The Jack pics are recycled from remix and are still among my favorites. Cryx units were redone and look pretty freaky. Overall the mix of new and old art is pretty nice. Art work: B+

Rules wise its hard to grade. Since this is just Warmachine prime +1 Heavy Jack I can't call any faction broken, just 1 dimensional. Rules: Incomplete

Story wise I'm a big fan. There is a little skirmish in the opening of the book between Menoth and Cygnar. I won't say much, but its in the feel of the book. They re-hashed the countries histories in their sections and added in a few new things that have happened since the story began to chug along. I think its great for people who don't know the story because they can pick it up and get a cliff notes version of whats happened so far. Also there is a large bit of history written from the perspective of the piper, its pretty damn cool. Story Section: A

Overall layout is sold. In the original Prime books Cryx was before Khador, and that wasn't the case in any other book, This time around they listed Cryx last in the book and I'm guessing that will be uniform from here on out. The Index is nice, the Faction pages have colored borders so they are easy to find and flip to. Very friendly and intuitive set up. My one complaint is that the Miniatures are off on their own instead of attached to their factions sections, but that's a small preference issue. Layout: B

Extras! There is a painting Section, which is ok, its tough to give detailed painting tips in so small a space. The Terrain section had about the same treatment. The appendixes are a nice reference area for the book. Warjack bonds and timing issues are explained there. The forward by Matt Wilson is as amazing and heartfelt as always. Page 5 caught my attention, its my feeling that Page 5 has gone down hill since Apotheosis. They were a little too in your face and the jokes didn't hit home as hard. This is was very different. It was really in the spirit of the game. P.P doesn't want games to end from Vp sniping. This is a game designed to have mass destruction as two 10 ton jacks smash into each other and both players fight to the bitter end. Then there was Rule 5. This was the one that really caught my attention, to summarize; Don't be a Douche! Great message and something that I feel was almost lost after seeing the way the 2008 national tourney went. Extras: B+ (Pg 5 and the Forward put it over the top)

Overal Grade B+/A- range. Great book every Warmachine player needs to pick it up. Tomorrow the faction Decks come out and then I will be able to give real feedback on the rules and balance of the game. Word on the street is Menoth is broke

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

My Gaming Bio (And thoughts)

Broad topic i know, but i wanted to throw out my thoughts on several things. I'll start with my first foray into gaming which was with Miniatures.

I'll discount when I was like 8-11 years old and had like 30 Guardsmen and a Tank from this subject, I didn't know, or really care for the rules then and just liked to look at my overpriced army men and play soldiers with them. It wasn't until 10th grade that I was finally pulled into it for real with Warhammer Fantasy. I played Dwarves and found rather quickly I had a small attention span for a single army and within a few years had branched out to build small Undead, Wood Elf, Beastman, and Chaos armies. Most of them i played a few times, generally with a lot of proxies. Wood Elves and Beastmen appealed to me the most. they used fast guys, skirmished units, and were a nightmare to try to engage. I entered my Dwarves into several tournaments and usually went 2-1 with them. Never won anything. My first tourney with the Wood Elves I crushed all three opponents soundly and took home a win. With my Beastmen I did the same, but to an even worse extent, I believe in three games I only left 25 total models alive. I won best general, but lost on account of my unpainted army, and most likely poor sportsmanship. I started into Wahammer 40k as i went off to college, all my Fantasy Buddies went away to school, so I started 40k so I would have something to do. I sucked hard, and Honestly I've never done well at 40k tournaments. I'm pretty good at a 1 and done style game and usually win those, but when the tournaments roll around I generally flop. I played Space marines, but got fed up with that and Went to Chaos, which I have played every since. I've tried starting new armies, but i lose interest really fast and just buy more Chaos. Without realizing it I had a large well painted army that I could customize in a lot of ways.

At some point in here I picked up a battle box of Cryx guys, I assembled them, primed them, played like 10 games with Bill, and then put them back in the box to sit for a while. It wasn't until Jay started bugging me to pull them back out that I started earnestly playing Warmachine, which was the best thing I've ever done with my life, and that's a disturbingly true statement. I wouldn't know any of my current friends or my Fiance, had I not started playing this game. And my god it was fresh! The game is really unlike anything else I've played. Rules and Mechanics wise it is the best miniature game made. The models were gorgeous, the factions rich with flavor, the fluff was crazy ass cool! I immersed myself in Warmachine for a very long time. And the best part is I was really damn good at it. I seemed to understand the tournament setting far better than 40k. (At this point I had become to fed up with the asinine rules of Fantasy to even play anymore, to this day I declare it the worst game I own... also i have orcs for sale!) Outside of the 2005 National Tournament I have not entered a tournament with my Cryx and not taken the award for Best Cryx Player. This helped fuel my ego and allowed me to make such audacious claims as I was the best Cryx player within 1,000 miles. My unfortunate friends had no way to disprove this statement as I was really really good. In the summer of 05 Privateer Press announced Hordes would be the next big thing. We waited impatiently for the full release. I liked the Circle models best, but was pretty broke so I went with Trolls thinking It would be cheaper. that was wrong and now I play Circle! but at the time i played trolls and damn were we excited for this game. We mixed it with warmachine, played solo, did just about everything under the sun with these two games until we burned out of them for a while. There was a stretch were played l5r almost exclusively, and a point where just I did. But not be Denied Warmachine came back into out minds and our hearts, new models, stories, and rules kept fueling us to play more and more. We have burned out and come back it more times than I can count. At the moment I feel like we are all on the verge of another great Warmachine push, but we need out MKII cards... nice job making us wait 2 weeks PP ya assholes!

Interspersed between all this we bounced around new games here and there. the most notable were Monsterpocalypse, which while a fun game got disturbingly repetitive after a while, I throw your through a building, I throw you! I throw you!... crap i died because there are some overpowered damage combos... woooooo, and repeat. Arcane Legions was our next one, I'm still in love with this game a little bit. It was cheap to get into, easy to play and there were a lot of great little touches in it. My problems arose when Archery became the end all aspect of the game. I have more bows therefore my tactics are irrelevant I can shoot your toughest unit down before they get here. And The create your own unit feature, which allowed people to break the game as they saw fit. Lastly the game were are still learning, and trying to get models for, Firestorm Armada. So far its a great game, I'm having trouble getting that elusive first victory, I'm not frustrated yet, but I might be soon.

Thats where my miniature gaming portion ends. I'll do another section later. Card Gaming might be even longer, god I played some shitty card games.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Even More of F.S.A

After my second game played and watching a few more I have a few gripes with the game. The Critical table has a lot of flaws in it. The most devastating is the chance to one shot any ship. In a game where were first testing out the merits of terrain I had a very favorable set up and was picking my opponents fleet apart. Most of the frigates were down the Battle ship was wounded, and I had started to wound his cruisers. On his first move of turn 3 or 4 he full combine fired into my battleship. He proceeded to roll very well to get his hit into a crit and then he rolled a pair of 6's on the damage table. This caused the warp drive to buckle and annihilate my unhurt battle ship. Then i looked at the board and realized that despite how well i was doing and how sound my tactics were that i was going to lose. He could keep his battleship hidden in terrain and force me to desperately try to hurt it as he crushed through my ships. It happened again in a Game was watching the next day. Terains were crushing the Dindrenzi when in a desperation shot they hit and crit the Terrain battle ship, and rolled double one's causing the ship go nuclear. The worse part is that the Dindrenzi had done that same crit earlier in the game to a cruiser, the damage of its blast killed off a Frigate and another already damaged cruiser. So every crit brings with it a 1/18 chance of destroying the ship it hits outright. That is a little too high for likings. There is also the far to comon chance that you can damage your opponents main weapons and he has only a 33% chance to restore them a turn. Its not so bad on certain ships but when your main weapons are your forward guns or your turrets, it seriously hampers your chance to damage your enemy.

Apparently there a cards in the deck which we haven't gotten yet, that allow you to cancel a critical hit. If that is the case then i can see the Crits not being so broken.

Overal still really enjoying the game. The dindrenzi have lost their magic in mike's eyes, though he likes the phallus shaped ships, they can only fire in a fixed front arc, much like their phallic brethren. He tried the Relthoza but the cloaking device doesn't seem to strong, especially with 6's being so powerful in the game. Next we will try Aqueans vs Sorylians to see who is the best at range 2 combat. I'll need a little luck against their powerhouse weapons.

Almost forgot, Boarding actions are pretty damn cool. In one boarding action Eric almost wiped out the whole crew of Brian's battleship, I think i'll need to start trying that if i'm to have any chance of beating the Aquans.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

F.S.A 2

So i played my first game of it last night and now i really want to play my second game.

Things I found fantastic. You can't squat and shoot. Your guns will be outmaneuvered and the rules literally say you must move every turn unless the turn before you declared you were stopping. This made for an interesting little game of turnabout between my Battleship and Mike's.

Combining fire, it allows weak ships to play with the big boys. It also gives you a good chance to one shot the little ships who are slightly too tough to take out in a single go. *unless your mike and crit every damn time you roll*

I actually really like how slow and cumbersome ships are. The larger guys can't even make a 180 in a single turn. It makes the fixed arc guns very tough to use.


Things i learned: Get outside of the fixed guns arc as fast as you can. If its fixed then it must be one hell of a gun and its not that hard to avoid it. Had i done this earlier our game may have had a very different outcome last night.

Shields are amazing. Several times i was able to turn a hit into a miss and a few times i was able to turn a crit into a regular hit. I really wish my cruisers had shields. I'm nervous about how powerful Terrains will be, their shields are very high and their turrets look like they will be a force to be reckoned with.

Torpedoes don't suffer penalties from hull damage. that may have changed the out come of our game, i was shorting myself my torpedoes for several turns because i didn't think they could shoot.


So the next step is building a fleet. We just used the starter box fleets so we had no wings. I'm interested to build in Carriers and Fighter Groups. Tomorrow we will try a bigger game i think.

More Later... most likely next week

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Firestorm Armada

Dan is psyched. So psyched he's using 3rd person.

But enough of that. I never got a chance to play BFG and I was always interested int he concept of Space Battles. Firestorm looks like it will give me my chance. If i end up taking a liking to this game then the Tyranids will be shelved for a while, as i explore this game.

Brief Story bit: The Drindrenzi invaded the storm zone attacking the Sorylians, Aqueans, and Terrans. Reeling from the invasion they were forces to work together and formed the Kurak Alliance. The Drindrenzi are winning the war, but the allied forces have resisted enough that the Drindrenzi are calling in their own allies. The Directorate, a militant race of humans and the Relthoza and strange spider like alien race.

Factions Below

Terrans - Humans, the main good guy force in the game. They developed Shields which they shared with their allies. The villainy style guys have reinforced hulls while the good guys have shields. They have excellent range torpedoes and their battleships have turrets which can broadside in any direction. The Terrans greatest advantage seems to be their superior shields.

Aqueans - A fish people, I like to think they are led by Admiral Akbar. This fleet is the best at using mines, has decent shields, and all their guns appear to be on turrest giving them great broadside ability. They are very good at getting into the enemies formations and wreaking havoc there.

Sorylians - Not sure what they are, someone mentioned Lizards, some else said they are like Cardassians. What ever, they are fast and numerous. The carriers bring a lot of fighters to the party. They are also they strongest at boarding actions. No one is sure if this can be a victory condition, but they are good at it. the Sorylians work in large groups using concentrated fire power to take down their opponents ships. The Sorylian Carriers are apparently the most feared in the System.

Relthoza - The Spider People. They have decent hull defense, but no shields. they make up for this with cloaking devices. They are good at most types of fighting without being the best at any one. Strong Boarding, good with torpedoes, guns are fixed. They are also very strong with Mine usage. Cloaking is their key

Directorate - I think these are the 3rd humans. Quick note their ships look very enterprisey and that is cool in my book. The big thing these guys do is fire torpedoes at point blank. So their goal is to get in the fight and while your opponent is throwing his piddly guns at you blast him back with full power torpedoes. They love to be in the thick of the fight a lot like the aqueans. Their downside is they don't make use of mines or fighters. its all about the big boys. and their defense is not as strong as the Drindrenzi.

Drindrenzi - The humans who started the fight. They have the Rail gun, as far as i can tell its the end all primary weapon. They have the toughest ships and are very good at forward firing attacks. their vulnerability is normally broadsides, but they have strong mine use to protect themselves.


Mike has ordered the book and we will be giving it a whirl this weekend, if things go well we may make an order, so far it looks pretty cheap, for the rules, and a full fleet im looking at $70, which is actually in line with what Ellen and I wanted to spend on post Christmas gaming stuff. Brian seems to be interested too which is great, he likes the Aqueans, Mike likes the Drindrenzi and I like the Sorylians.

More will come Friday when i get the test the game.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Next 40k project

So now that my Chaos marines are finished. Im looking on to my next project, I think I will finally get my Tyranids table ready. Im hoping to play with a Trygon and 6 Raveners. With enough luck i should be able to basically start assaulting my opponent early and covering the advance of my Carnifex, Hormagaunts and Gene Stealers. After a quick inventory last night here is what i own

1 Hive Tyrant
9 Tyranid Warriors
46 Termaguants
24 Hormagaunts
30 Genestealers
2 Zoanthropes
2 Carnifexes


I am clearly missing a guy or two, As im positive i have a Lictor, Brood Lord, and a 3rd Carnifex. Ill check my parents to see what i can dig up. But at the moment im pleased with my options.