A Return/I Really Think So

The more things change, the more I am pretty much the same dude.

I am a few weeks removed from the previously mentioned hiatus.  I am many miles removed from what I began to think of as home.  Life, or at least mine, tends to have its various chapters punctuated by changes in physical location.  Based on the length of the previous plane ride, we're in for a doozy.

Yes, we are now in the Land of the Rising Sun.  We are still working on a few minor details like "finding a place to live", but we are settling in slowly but surely.  Despite all the newness, I've still managed to find the time to recon a local gaming group.  After hearing an ad on a 40K podcast (clutch timing by the The Independent Characters.  Thanks guys!) for the exact area we were moving into, I reached out via email and was invited to join the group on the following weekend.  I had a good time and have since been back one other time.

The group seems like good guys and their is a solid contingent of 40K players, so I imagine my standard gaming fare won't change so much as to be recognizable.  However, there seems to be quite a few games on offer, including Mordheim, War Machine, and various board gaming, so the dominance of 40K over the last year of dice rolling seems unlikely to continue.  Of the sixty or so tabletop games I played this year, all but two of them were 40K, so given the chance, I'd love to branch out some more in the upcoming year.

One thing I'm worried about is the general lack of focus.  It seems like many of the guys arrive and begin heading off on their own tangents, including wandering to the corner to play some MMO.  That seems an odd choice for social gaming.  I guess in this context, you need to take what you can get, but I believe a gaming group is stronger when they can be united behind a few creative ideas.  The group doesn't have to be totally homogenous, but it's a lot more fun when everyone gets behind something like a league or a campaign for a bit.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to a  bright new year and the opportunity to make some new friends.  What those will look like?  I have no idea.

Tournament Planning

At the worst, we'll have great tables to play on.

For any of you out there in the San Diego, I and one of my buddies will be running a tournament at At Ease Games on July 21st.  Check in kicks off around 10, games at 11 if you're interested.

It will be my first official tournament experience with sixth edition, which makes being the boss of it kind of intimidating.  Someone has to be the first, I suppose.  Of course, that comes with a can of worms in the form of the lack of a successful, preexisting template already being in place.  Because of that, I have a myriad of concerns in my head racing to be the biggest and they're all winning.

With the newness of the edition, we've decided to stick mostly to book missions.  The theory is that nobody has played (half of) them enough that they've gotten particularly stale, so why go out of the way to create a wholly different framework?  That said, how do you best string a chosen three of these missions together to promote a healthy, balanced competition?  Especially when it has been made abundantly clear that the intent of the edition is to push for more narrative gameplay.  Though perhaps that's not the best point to bring up when trying to sell a tournament invitation.  Mostly, it's been a process of trying to pick and choose between the new stuff that seems to provide something close to equal footing, then filling in with the holdovers.

Wanna team up, bro?

One decision I'm content with is excluding allies and fortifications for the first tourney.  I know it's in the rulebook.  Three weeks in, it's just more complication than I want to deal with.  I don't know the edition nearly as well as I'd like to for judging, let alone the way all the extra interactions from new combos will work.  Players haven't had a lot of time to experiment or see what is out there either.  Give it a bit more time, and then we'll get real crazy.

Theoretically, it should be that simple, but with a positive turnout, we come to one of the common problems faced by three round tourneys.  Obviously, I'm referring to how to stratify multiple undefeated players in an equitable manner.  We have room for roughly twenty players, meaning three 3-0's is in play.  And while one of my racing concerns is no one showing, I'd guess we'll be running out of space before we're struggling to fill tables.  In 5th edition, I typically rotated the three missions as primary and secondary, with something a little funkier for tertiary.  I used the system both as a way to score battle points and to break ties.  With six missions, it seems odd to leave any of them out, and with so may of them being objective based, they tend not to combine quite so well.  That is to say, how the heck would play The Scouring and Crusade?  Not a lot of folks bring eleven scoring units, even with Fast Attacks thrown in.  That would pretty much tip the scale all the way to MSU style armies before a die gets cast...  Though if it means no Draigowing...


So that's kind of where things stand.  I'll have more about mission selection and the actual format after the tourney, plus whatever observations I have as far as results and data.

A Few 6th Edition Initial Thoughts

Have you read a thousand of these posts yet?

We had a sort of informal tournament on Saturday at At Ease Games.  There wasn't a prize pool or an entry fee or scoring, but we had a time and a points value and a very large turnout.  By the end of the day, we had improvise extra tables, and there were still people standing, watching, and waiting for their turn.  The excitement was palpable and great to see.

I went 2-0-1 on the day, playing my Chaos Space Marines, with games against Daemons, Tau, and vanilla Marines.  I played the new versions of Seize Ground and Capture and Control, plus one of the new missions called "The Relic."  Overall, I really like the changes, while it also feels like I'm still just playing 40K.

I don't know that this edition will be kind to the tournament-centric mindset.  The random elements seem to be pretty prevalent.  By way of example, I'd pick Warlord traits.  A single D6 can have a pretty significant effect on the game.  In the Relic mission, I turned my Daemon Prince into a scoring unit, while my Tau opponent got the ability to score victory points by slaying enemies in challenges.  To me, that seems like a pretty big disparity.  On the other hand, the game is really fun, seems to play quickly, and does a good job of making things cinematic.  For those kinds of games, I think it's going to be a tremendous rule set.  Woodchuck and Hanover's please.

I'm not too worried about Allies.  It seems like it was written similarly to how it was in the 8th edition Fantasy book, which never seemed to see a profound emergence of allies.  And while there may be some crazy combos, everyone can play them.  It also gives me the opportunity to field a detachment of daemons in my Chaos army while I'm building them up.  Now I don't have to buy a whole army to start playing with it.  I can have an all painted force, even while building one up.

A few other brief thoughts.  First, overwatching Plasma Guns are TERRIFYING.  Second, I like the way vehicles work.  They're more reliable and easier to kill at the same time.  I don't think we'll see a lot of light mech in assault armies because you need to be out of them a full turn to charge, but shooty armies might still spam light chassis.  Hopefully this means we'll see the addition of lizard and Spock to the rock, paper scissors mix.  Finally, I really hope flying things don't become the level 4 wizards of 40K.  They seem to be difficult to handle and able to dish out the punishment.  Most armies aren't ready to handle them beyond praying for sixes.  That may change as each book comes out, but that will take a while.

In the meantime, game on!

Clubbing Baby Seals Sustainably

First game while fully based and fully painted.

This past Thursday, my army was volunteered to play the youngest member of the league and his Orks.  To clarify, we're talking about someone who's voice hasn't quite changed yet.  This posed a question that I don't think I've ever had to answer in war gaming.    How do you play a kid?

My opponent had an OK grasp on the basic rules, but it was certainly not complete and tended towards giving him an advantage.  For example, he assaulted out of his Trukk after moving it, then informed me in the next round that it had an 'Ard Case so it wasn't open-topped and I wouldn't add one to my damage roll (sidenote: turns out Trukks can't even have 'Ard Cases).  Movement was spotty, with models starting behind the tape and ending pretty clearly past six inches.  Rulings on cocked dice seemed based around whether they might fall on success or failure.      

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because he's young.  This is especially the case when recalling myself at that age.  I suppose the question posed is how best to respond.  If I let things slide, it'll reinforce mistaken notions about rules.  If I correct him too often, I might come off as nitpicking or exploiting his lack of knowledge, and ending up only discouraging him.  I ended up taking a middle road, letting the dice and movement slide, but reminding him about things like assaulting closest models to closest, and then showing him the best way to position his models in the movement phase to get the match-ups he wanted.

The beautiful city board.

Tactically, I played a little looser than normal.  I committed Logan's unit early, allowing him a chance to counter charge with multiple mobs.  Unfortunately, he didn't capitalize on my "mistakes", choosing instead to bring his reserves in on the other side of the board.  For the most part, his units were falling off the board on their own as non-horde Orks tend to do.  I did walk a unit of Nobz off the board by leaving a unit just within six inches of them.  Honestly, I felt like a heel doing it, but I tried to make it a point of learning, telling him to remember how to do it for when he played his dad's Marines.  That didn't make me feel better.  At the same time, I've never been a fan of "letting them win."  I've always tried to get better by playing against people that are better than me.

The game turned out to be one-sided, and my opponent was visibly frustrated.  I tried to make a few suggestions regarding wargear (power klaws over big choppas) and tactics (using bait units and how to bring numbers to bear), and told him to stay positive, but I can't help but worry I had a negative impact on his hobby.  Obviously, it's important to me for opponents to enjoy themselves, even when they're having a rough game.  In this case though, what's the most sporting way to play someone so young?  How do you help them along while not taking it overly easy on them?  And how do you ensure that they have a good time, so they'll stick around to become full grown seals?

Throwing Dice at Terminators/Deep Striking... Like a Boss

I've gotten in a trio of games these past weeks. For the first time I've tried to get a bit more creative with building the list I take to them. It's not that I can really argue with the results of the games I have played, but rather that I see significant weaknesses in it. Outside of a couple games where my armor saves rolled way above the mean, I always feel like I'm on the brink of losing everything. I suppose that makes sense, since I'm usually playing with about 25 models, but that's only part of the picture.I think one of the larger issue is the lack of mobility. In Killpoints games I get avoided and I can't pin anyone down, or I'm out-ranged and don't have enough light-vehicle killing. In Objectives games, whatever I commit to an objective is stuck there for the whole game. If I get wiped off of one point, there's no real chance to commit more resources there. I project a lot of threat, but it's over a very limited area.

Here's the list I took to the last two games I've played:
Logan Grimnar

Rune Priest w/ Chooser of the Slain, Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane

Lone Wolf Terminator w/ Wolf Claws

Dreadnought w/ Multi-melta in a Drop Pod

4 Wolf Guard Terminators in a Drop Pod
w/ 2 Combi-meltas, Arjac Rockfist, 1 Storm Shield, 2 Wolf Claws, 1 Powerfist

5 Wolf Guard Terminators in a Drop Pod
w/ 2 Combi-meltas, 2 Storm Shields, 2 Wolf Claws, 3 Powerfists, Assault Cannon

5 Wolf Guard Terminators
w/ 3 Power Fists, Power Weapon, Chainfist, 4 Storm Bolters, Assault Cannon

5 Wolf Guard Terminators
w/ 4 Power Fists, Power Weapon, 4 Storm Bolters, Heavy Flamer

Thunderwolf w/ Storm Shield, Wolf Claw

Arjac's Squad w/ Logan is an absolute beast. It gets delivered deep into the enemy's lines, often by itself, and it starts wrecking things. Granted, it's a third of my army's points, but the amount of hurt they can dish out is outrageous, while the wound allocation shenanigans and the terminator armor/storm shield combos means that only the weight of dice will bring the squad down.

I was impressed with the Thunderwolf's threat range. In the one game that he didn't die horribly, his fleeting and long assault make it quite a bit easier to get across the board. If I play the unit again, I'd like to increase the size of the unit to at least 3, so the unit can take a little more punch before going down. I can do a squad easily at a little more than 200 points, and I could add a lord or a battle leader for some more durability and some serious hurt.

I'd kind of like to squeeze in some jump troops and some missile launchers as well. For the jump troops, I have two options: Skyclaws or Wolf Guard w/ Jump packs. The Wolf Guard get expensive faster than their Terminator brothers and are less resilient. The Skyclaws don't make sense from the "elite" standpoint of the army, though I could do up some Death Company models which would be fun. The launchers seem to be the choice of prevailing wisdom, and I would appreciate the 48-inch range. Trying to catch Venoms is becoming quite tiresome, so having that extra long arm would be nice. Sadly, they don't make much sense aboard a Space Hulk, but then, neither do jump infantry so neither came as part of the set.

This makes me worry that I'm betraying the initial spirit of the project I envisioned. Space Hulk whispered, "Terminators" into my ear, and though I play them well, I'm playing one-off beer and pretzel's type games. I like winning, but if that were really the key element here, I could have grabbed a ton of Long Fangs a couple years ago. No matter how much I analyze the "competitiveness" of the list, every game thus far has been competitive and fun. That "special moment" where something cool happens seems to come about every game, whether it be a devastating charge, a unit refusing to go down, or one big kill. Each game has been tense and close, and isn't that what we want out of our armies? If it helps us realize our creative vision, stacks up on the table most of the time, and brings us joy, isn't that the holy grail of hobby? I wouldn't speak for anyone else, but for me, yes.

Did that turn into a sermon? Quite possibly. Anyway, on the lighter side, here is one more picture:For my friends that stick to regular board games, the only way to lose what's inside a drop pod is to have it scatter off the table. I nearly managed this feat after rolling 12-inches and an arrow pointed directly at the nearest table edge. Of course this ended up being a great thing as the other drop pod is on top of his objective, but it could have gone horribly wrong. Failing to learn my lesson, I duplicated this the very next game, though only rolling a nine, and honestly, I may have only made it due to some grace from my opponent.