I painted these guys ageas ago, but never really got around to photographing them for the blog. Paul and I played a campaign game last week and I took the opportunity to do up a quick video of this 1500pt force.
Owen
This it the third game of four in our Annihilation in the Rustwood campaign. I’ve managed to win the last two (reports here and here), but things could get tricky this time out as Phil already has a good idea what my Absylonia Tier 4 force is capable of. I’m using Absylonia again as I think Saeryn will be better suited to leading Legion into the final 50pt game. Both Absylonia and Saeryn really augment the survivability of my beasts, making them great campaign warlocks, so I’m hoping win or lose that I can have a good few beasts survive this game.
For the third game we were playing with 35pt forces over the Demolition scenario. My army was a Tier 4 Absylonia Theme force comprising the following:
Phil went with a Moshar led force:
If you know the Harlem Globetrotters theme music, now might be a good time to start humming it!
Enjoy!
Owen
This is the fourth post in my Audit series and this time I look at Warhammer, a game that has very much fallen out of favour with me.
My Warmachine, Hordes, Malifaux and Flames of War models all sit in their cases in the house. My Warhammer models are out in the shed! They outnumber all of the game system models, but they haven’t seen the tabletop in over two years. You can tell where my prioties lie by looking at the number of blog posts in each category – Warmachine:160+, Hordes:90+, Malifaux:27, Flames of War:22, Warhammer:7 (and several of those are sympathy categorisations!). I haven’t played any 8th edition games and indeed the goliath rulebook was my last Games Workshop purchase.
My anti-Warhammer sentiment stems from a couple of places. Privateer Press put in a lot of effort to produce a well honed set of rules that manage to (more-or-less) balance two different games (Warmachine and Hordes) across almost dozen factions. They did this in less than ten years. After 25 years Warhammer is still sloppy in parts, with FAQs appearing almost as soon as rules are released. Privateer Press held an open playtest before coming up with MkII. Warhammer still feels like only a dozen players ‘tested’ it before it was released. So, my first main gripe lies with the lack of precision in the rules and (acknowledged) lack of balance across the armies.
My second problem is with GW’s pricing. Starting a new army is prohibitively expensive when compared to other systems. GW have crept the ‘standard’ size game up to 2500pts. You still only get a 2 hour gaming experience with that and compared to the other games listed above it is at least twice as expensive to collect an army.
It’s not all bad though. The guys playing Warhammer in our club (certainly the ones playing it for fun rather than the tedious ETC/tournament practice ones) seem to be having fun with it. Recently Fergus ran a campaign with custom scenarios and everyone who participated had fun. I think this is what Warhammer is designed for. As I said above, the rules and balance are suspect in (a lot of) places, but what does that matter if you can still have fun with it.
I may play some Warhammer in the next year, but it’ll be for fun, with existing models and rules. Warmachine is my competitive game of choice. Warmachine is also something I really have fun playing. Warhammer will struggle to compete with it, Malifaux and Flames of War for my attention this year, but who knows!
Next up in the audit: The Rest!
Owen
This is the third post in my Audit series (the first on, on Warmachine and Hordes, is here and the second on Malifaux is here). This time around it’s a game that I don’t get to play much, but that represents another interest – Flames of War.
I’ve always been interested in war. It’s a peculiar thing to say as war is a terrible thing that humans inflict on each other, but war and specifically the engineering that underpins warfare really interests me. Flames of War allows me to explore World War II through wargaming. I think I’ve only played two games in the last year, painted one platoon and added some 28mm Paratroopers, but Flames of War is still an important game to me.
This game has inspired me to read deeper into certain campaigns and battles, specifically the fighting around Carentan after D-Day, the slaughter in the Hürtgen Forest, Market Garden and the allied offensive in Italy. Each reading is guided by the armies I own – US Paratroopers and Gepanzerte PanzerGrenadiers (Mechanized Infantry) – and the conflicts companies of these types fought in. In that sense the game really does influence my knowledge WWII.
I have little intention to expand my forces in the coming year or to buy any more books. I have the core rulebook and plenty of expansions. If I decided to only play Flames of War in the coming year (I’m not going to!) I think I’d have more than enough models and books to keep me going. That said, I may add a few discrete things, some Stuart tanks and some regular US infantry. I’ll probably use a different company for the models though, as the Battle Front models are pretty pricey.
I’ll probably play some campaign games over the coming year, but I suspect, like this year, I’ll only play a handful of games.
Owen
Peter and I played out a fun game of Flames of War this evening, but boy did we make a lot of mistakes. We played the Free for All mission, which is thankfully pretty straightforward. The game was set in Italy in October 1943, just north of the Volturno. Peter fielded a 3rd Infantry Division force from the Dogs and Devils book with three infantry platoons, one of which was an assault platoon, a platoon of 105mm artillery, 8cm mortars and a platoon of Priests (armoured artillery). I went with a Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier army from Fortress Europe that comprised two mechanised infantry platoons, four Panzer IV Hs, two StuGs and a battery of Nebelwerfers.
The next mistake we made was forgetting to dig in with the artillery on the first turn. As this the mission had the Mobile Battle rule they did little else on the first turn, so we should have gotten them dug in.
We made other silly mistakes. When my Panzers hit the Priests, as the Priests’ armour couldn’t stop the shot we forgot to make the Firepower checks to determine if they were bailed out or destroyed. Instead we simply marked them as destroyed!
We took our time on the assault on the left, but forgot that defensive fire can pin a mounted assault as the platoon is mixed.
In the end my shooting routed Peter’s three artillery platoons and the infantry I assaulted quit the field (despite winning the assault). My assaulting platoon quit the field as it failed the Sole Survivor morale check. The game ended in a Victory Point win to me.
Next time we’ll play with fewer mistakes and with more terrain!
Owen
This is the second post in my Audit series (the first on, on Warmachine and Hordes, is here). This time around I’m taking a critical look at my Malifaux gaming.
I picked up Malifaux not long after it was released, but interest in the game locally plummeted after the initial release. I still kept interest in the game, mostly driven by the beautiful models, and even started to build a VASSAL module for it just over a year ago. Other projects took over so it stalled before it had really begun.
This year has been much better for Malifaux. From a hobby perspective I have really enjoyed painting the models, particularly in experimenting with the underpainting technique. I’ve painted the Sonnia Criid and Lucius crew boxes this year and have more stuff lined up for the next few months (Guild Guard; Dead Justice and converting a Lady Justice Avatar from the alt. sculpt). I’ll continue with the underpainting approach as its muted colours help to unify the models quite nicely.
On the gaming side I’ve gotten more Malifaux games in this year than I have at any other stage. I only started playing Malifaux in May 2010, so playing more games this year was pretty much guaranteed. The fun I’ve had playing the game re-invigorated my interest in doing a VASSAL module for it and things have been progressing well on that front. There will be more news on that later in the year!
Puppet Wars is something I’m looking forward to. I have it pre-ordered and I can’t wait to get a few games in. I’m really looking forward to painting the puppets as it’ll give me a chance to use some interesting colours. Expect a few posts about colour theory and palette selection when I start work on those little models. I plan to use them as Malifaux models too, so that’ll present an interesting modeling challenge when I want to have a crew of mixed models. Basing might be the secret there.
Apart from completing and releasing the module and getting into Puppet Wars, my main plans are to continue learning to play The Guild and trying to play as many enemy Masters as possible. Painting the Dead Justice crew is something I’m particularly looking forward too.
Malifaux is in the ascendency. The main problem is that there are few players locally. The VASSAL module will mitigate that somewhat, but I may think about writing a campaign system for it. I am a little disappointed that Wyrd don’t have a campaign extension for the game…
Next up in the audit: Flames of War.
Owen
Audit. A word that strikes fear into managers everywhere. If you’re in a business area that doesn’t get audited I envy you! That said taking stock of any activity can be a healthy exercise, so in this series of posts I’m going to reflect on what games I play and how I’ve fared with them in the last year. I’ll also talk about my (tentative) plans for the coming year. Up first it’s Warmachine and Hordes…
In the last year the majority of the games I’ve played have been of Warmachine and Hordes, and I definitely consider it to be my main game. I currently have Khador, Mercenaries (mostly Privateers), Cryx and Legion of Everblight factions. Here’s an overview of my collection of models -
Oh yeah, I have a proxied Circle Orboros force too! As you can see I pretty much have everything painted that I own. In the last year the Mercenaries have seen quite a lot added to them, as have Legion. To Khador and Cryx I’ve added the odd model here and there.
In terms of play time Khador and Legion are still my primary factions and I think that will continue, though the Mercenaries are getting a decent amount of play. I’ve done well in competitive play this year with all three of those factions, so I think my standard of play is pretty good. I’ve also played a lot of campaign games, both physically and over VASSAL. I’m really enjoying Warmachine and Hordes and that is set to continue.
In the coming year I’d like to do a couple of things from a painting and modelling perspective – add the Gun Carriage and some more infantry to Khador is one of my main priorities. For the Gun Carriage I’d love to create a diorama base. I have some ideas – more on that in the next month or so! Legion is ticking over quite well. I see myself adding just a few bits to Legion when Domination comes out, maybe Kallus’ character beast and the Legionnaire’s UA. I’d also like to add some models to Cryx to do Skarre’s new theme force from a recent No Quarter. I don’t plan on expanding the Mercenaries this year, though I can seem myself adding a Freebooter warjack to complete the Pirate ‘jacks!
From a gaming perspective I’d like to increase my Press Ganger activity – family life has been pretty hectic with Ciarán’s birth this year, but I’ll hopefully have more time in the coming year. I plan to run the Journeyman Slow Grow League this side of Christmas as well as running a couple of tournaments. I’m going to keep up the campaign play as it’s just silly fun! I’ll probably expand the ANNIHILATION system next year, though I’m not sure what direction to take it in yet. One other thing I’d like to do is to reflect on how much MkII game time my Warcasters and Warlocks have seen. I definitely have my favourites, but I need to consciously try to use my less competitive models.
Next up in the audit: Malifaux!
Owen
Peter and I got a game in this evening with the new Legion warlock facing off against pSkarre. Peter’s force was all Satyxis (Raiders and Blood Witches), their respective UAs/solos, Mechanithralls, Skarlock and a Leviathan.
In Kallus’ force I had a Ravagore, Carnivean, Shredder, Shepherd, Deathstalker, max Warmongers and max Legionnaires. This was my first game with Kallus and I wanted to see how he fared with a mixed force. His abilities mostly seem to support infantry, but Dark Guidance is a great spell on beasts too. It is expensive for a 6 Fury warlock… Incite gives the Legionnaires decent punch and they, along with the Warmongers will also benefit from Dark Guidance. The Shredder is there for his animus and a damage transfer if needs be.
It was a good game, but I didn’t learn too much about Kallus. The +2 DEF on his feat for soulless models is great. It protected him from Skarre and made the feat Incubi tricky to hit. Dark Guidance is pricey – between greedily casting it and leaving Kallus on zero Fury I nearly lost the game. I needed to repair the Carnivean after some decent Leviathan ranged attacks, but I should have let Incite drop to leave him with a transfer. He will always be short on Fury when casting Dark Guidance, but the Carnivean did make six attacks including its charge and hit with all of them thanks to the extra die to hit. It was a thing of beauty! The Incubi are useful, but like most defensive feats rely on your opponent, so a canny opponent can minimise the impact, or plan to take out the Incubi created.
I think Kallus could be very solid. I’m looking forward to getting more games in with him.
Owen
Owen
The is the second game in a four game campaign. I brought Saeryn out to play this time against Phil’s Baldur list. The winner of this 25pt game would get a free Feralgeist in each of the subsequent games (this doesn’t impact theme forces) as well as campaign points, so there is something to fight for.
Owen
