.....to bring you an important message about an awesome Kickstarter project:
ROBOTECH RPG TACTICS! (click here to see more about this project)
I had a chance to play a demo of this at Adepticon and the company was also giving away a free Zentradi figure each day in the vendor hall. As if they didn't already have me at "Robotech", the coolest sci-fi/anime/soap opera a 12 year old had ever seen, the free fig and the fun demo was enough.
Myself and a friend are in on this and set to get tons of bonus stuff thanks to the overwhelming support they have gotten on kickstarter. Yet, with 5 more days left there are still plenty of chances to join in. Not only are the models and background great but if you get in at the right level (Battle Cry and above) you will be getting a ton of great stuff at an incredible price.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled blog posts.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
Adepticon: Lord of the Rings
With the release of the Hobbit SBG rulebook last winter our small group of LotR players had a shot of new excitement about the game we love. I'll leave to analyses of GW and it's sale strategies to others but let me say I'm just happy to still be able to play the game and use the models I have as the new stuff is a bit rich for my blood.
The original plan was to have Brent Sinclair run his "March to Mount Doom" event on Thursday night, the Team Tournament on Friday and some Hobbit demos on Saturday and Sunday. All these events either came very close to selling out or sold out and had spots added so I was very pleased with that. We were also fortunate to get some new Hobbit product thanks to the Adepticon sponsor team and the wonderful retailers that support the convention (not GW, but lots of OTHER retailers).
The original plan was to have Brent Sinclair run his "March to Mount Doom" event on Thursday night, the Team Tournament on Friday and some Hobbit demos on Saturday and Sunday. All these events either came very close to selling out or sold out and had spots added so I was very pleased with that. We were also fortunate to get some new Hobbit product thanks to the Adepticon sponsor team and the wonderful retailers that support the convention (not GW, but lots of OTHER retailers).
Here is the cast of characters who turned out for the Team Tournament on Saturday.
Below are some shots of the armies and players from that day. It was an awesome event to run and I want to thank all of the attendees for making it such a great day.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Custer's Last Stand
April is always a crazy time of year for me between work, family and gaming conventions. So, now that I have a chance to recupperate I thought I'd share some highlights from the awesome game convention that is Adepticon.
First up, with Adepticon moving to a Thursday start I decided to use that as an opportunity to do some gaming, since I wasn't scheduled to run anything until Friday. The one downside to this convention is that there is so much to do and not enough time to do it in, although that's not really a bad thing is it? Couple that with helping to run events or setup and there is even less time to play. My contribution is small but others do far more than me and I need to point out the extraordinary efforts some of the organizers and staff go to to make Adepticon what it is. A big thanks to the organizers and staff that spend countless, often thankless hours, prior to and during Adepticon to make it happen. It's only thanks to those dedicated volunteers that Adepticon is the great convention it is.
Enough of the Adepticon love fest then.....
I had the chance to sign up for "The Battle of Little Bighorn" game put on by a great guy and friend, Merle Delinger. I've seen him run this the past couple of years and I've always wanted to play in it.
Merle uses the Old West rules and Blood on the Plains supplement for this game. It involves several Native American contigents, one led by Crazy Horse and two Federal Cavalry contingents. One of these is deployed on table and led by George Custer himself. The other is all mounted releif force that arrives later as a reserve.
I decided I was feeling anti-government so chose to play as the Native Americans. It was a fun game and all five of us playing had a great time. Even though the reserve force game on first turn we managed to hold them up while Crazy Horse surrounded and finished off Custer. A victory for our side!
First up, with Adepticon moving to a Thursday start I decided to use that as an opportunity to do some gaming, since I wasn't scheduled to run anything until Friday. The one downside to this convention is that there is so much to do and not enough time to do it in, although that's not really a bad thing is it? Couple that with helping to run events or setup and there is even less time to play. My contribution is small but others do far more than me and I need to point out the extraordinary efforts some of the organizers and staff go to to make Adepticon what it is. A big thanks to the organizers and staff that spend countless, often thankless hours, prior to and during Adepticon to make it happen. It's only thanks to those dedicated volunteers that Adepticon is the great convention it is.
Enough of the Adepticon love fest then.....
I had the chance to sign up for "The Battle of Little Bighorn" game put on by a great guy and friend, Merle Delinger. I've seen him run this the past couple of years and I've always wanted to play in it.
Merle uses the Old West rules and Blood on the Plains supplement for this game. It involves several Native American contigents, one led by Crazy Horse and two Federal Cavalry contingents. One of these is deployed on table and led by George Custer himself. The other is all mounted releif force that arrives later as a reserve.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Concerning Hobbits
Thanks to the kindness of Brent Sinclair, organizer of Bilbo's Birthday Bash (B3), the Adepticon Lord of the Rings tournament attendees will be getting a one of a kind model for free when they enter at least one Lord of the Rings tournament at Adepticon 2013. Below is a painted version of the model that will be given away (unpainted of course) to attendees.
This model was sculpted by Dave Fredericks of Majestic Bear Miniatures. You can find out more about Adepticon and register for a Lord of the Rings tournament at the adepticon.org site.
Friday, January 11, 2013
A Shot of Southern Comfort
Over the past couple of weeks I've been inspired to delve into my American Civil War project that I'm working on as part of The Guns of April group. Due to the machinations of one our members who will go unnamed, we were gently persuaded to do Gettysburg. Since I was the least opposed to painting the "bad guys" I ended up as one of the Confederate commanders. Yet, on the positive side, I was tasked with painting the overall command stand with none other than Robert E. Lee (You'll have to wait for this one). Plus, I love bluegrass music so I've been getting my southern groove on while I paint these guys.
You can follow the full details of this project and all our contributors at The Guns of April Blog.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
2012 Hobby Resolutions: EPIC FAIL
I knew when I posted it last year at this time that in all likelihood my hobby resolutions for the year would be hard to follow through on. Well, turns out I was right in assuming that as I only accomplished 3 of me 2012 hobby resolutions. Below is the list from 2012 and I've indicated those items I accomplished.
For 2012 I have several painting and hobby projects to complete:
So, for 2013, let's see if I can get a least a 4 for 8 or better. Without further ado, here is my hobby resolutions for 2013.
To start the new year I thought I'd share my most recent Badab War model for my 1000 point project. This model is actually part of a planned Kill Zone team but I hope to make it part of my larger 40k Imperial Guard army. I kept with the white and blue color scheme of the IG I started and after finishing realized I had secretly channeled my inner Star Wars geek by replicating an AT-AT.
For 2012 I have several painting and hobby projects to complete:
- Paint one unit of 2/24th British Line Infantry for the Guns of April Napoleonic project for Adepticon (COMPLETED)
- Paint a unit of Gorgon Studios Etruscans for the Little Wars Charity auction (FAIL)
- Paint Fallaschirmjager and Panzer additions for my Flames of War forces (FAIL)
- Build and paint my FOW terrain for home use (FAIL)
- Paint a Lord of the Rings Harad army for Bilbo's Bash (FAIL)
- Paint at least one unit of Etruscans for the Gorgon Studios army (I'm setting the bar low) (COMPLETED)
- Play LotR and FOW more regularly (COMPLETED for LotR at least)
- Play in a FOW tournament (FAIL)
So, for 2013, let's see if I can get a least a 4 for 8 or better. Without further ado, here is my hobby resolutions for 2013.
- Paint a Confederate Brigade (130+ figs) for the Guns of April ACW project for Adepticon
- Finish my Fallschirmjager additions for FOW
- Finish my FOW terrain
- Play more FOW games
- Play in a FOW tournament
- Paint two new 600 point LotR armies
- Paint 1000 points for the Badab War project
- Play some 40k games
To start the new year I thought I'd share my most recent Badab War model for my 1000 point project. This model is actually part of a planned Kill Zone team but I hope to make it part of my larger 40k Imperial Guard army. I kept with the white and blue color scheme of the IG I started and after finishing realized I had secretly channeled my inner Star Wars geek by replicating an AT-AT.
Friday, December 28, 2012
The Hobbit SBG: The First Battle Report
With some time off after Christmas I was able to schedule a game with a friend and long time Lord of the Rings player. For him it was his first game in a year. For both of us it was our first game with the new Hobbit SBG rules.
A quick recap of the game and then I'll try and break down the rules changes and my thoughts on them in general. We played a 600 point game with me bringing 3 Uruk-hai warbands led by Saruman, a Captain and a Shaman while Mike brought 3 Dwarf warbands led by two Captains and Gimli. We played "Lords of Battle".
My initial deployment found me placing my Uruk-hai crossbowmen on the second floor of a ruined building on my left flank across from Mike's Dwarf archers deployed on a hill on his right flank. To the right of the building I deployed Saruman and his bodyguard in hopes of getting some Sorcerous Blasts off on the Dwarf flanks. Finally, in the center I deployed my third Warband led by the Captain so they could go toe-to-toe with the Dwarves.
As the game began I managed to get my Shaman to cast Fury using a heroic channelling which meant the fate roll was a 5+ instead of the normal 6+. Saruman, on the other hand, botched his roll for Sorcerous Blast. The crossbowman killed one dwarf archer and that was it. On Mike's turn he called a Heroic Accuracy with his captain positioned by his archers. This allowed them to re-roll any failed in the way rolls. Even though I had hid Saruman behind some Uruk-hai Mike was able to use his archers and the re-roll to force Saruman to take a couple of Fate rolls, which he passed.
The following turns saw our two forces get stuck in to combat with me initially having a slight edge in kills. Saruman also managed to get off two Sorcerous Blasts killing a total of 4 Dwarf Warriors and 1 Banner. He also used the Palantir to steal priority giving him a wonderful flank shot of Sorcerouns Blast. On the downside, Mike used another Heroic Accuracy to whittle Saruman down to zero fate and 1 wound. I quickly pulled Saruman back and hid him behind two Uruk-hai forcing Mike to make two in the way rolls. With no might left and all but two archers out of range, Mike took a chance and shot his two in range archers at Saruman. One hit, passed both in the way rolls (on a 5) and then rolled a 6 to wound Saruman! With no fate and one wound that was the end of Saruman giving mike 6 victory points in one figure.
The death of Saruman was a sign of things to come. The battle in the center started to turn Mike's way given the intervention of Gimli and the other Captain. At one stage I needed to kill 5 more to get him to break and force a roll off for the end of the game. He needed to kill 8 to do the same to me. For the next two rounds I killed a total of 1 warrior while Mike killed 10 of my guys. I either failed to win combats, Mike seemed to always win the roll offs for ties and if I did win I couldn't wound anything (3's don't wound Dwarves!). Of course, Fury kept me in the game except for my 4 remaining crossbowmen on the flank which promptly ALL failed their courage checks, needing a 7 and I rolled four 6's!! Even though we went three rounds we never rolled the one or two to end the game and finally, with me down to three figs, I cried Uncle and threw in the towel. Even taking out the 3 points for him being unbroken I lost 39 victory points to 16.
So, the new rules clearly haven't changed my ability to win games which I guess is good news for everyone else. :)
The new rules are great! The game is the same game as the Lord of the Rings SBG but has definite tweaks to it that give the game some new life and new challenges. The new options for spending Might are very cool. They give characters a chance to use Might when they might not normally do so. For instance, Mike's Dwarf Captain leading the archers used his two points to call Heroic Accuracy which reduced Saruman's fate and wounds to the point where one lucky shot was enough to kill him. With how far out of the battle that model was, without that use of Might for that action that figure may well have ended the game not having used any might at all.
Heroic Channeling is another great use of Might. Using it on my Fury spell meant I saved wounds on a 5 or 6. I have almost never made a fate roll in the past but with it being 5+ I actually passed three or four. Considering that is about all my Shaman is good for I think I'll be using that move with him in the future.
The other big change is the added rules for weapons. For my Uruk-hai, they could use Feint which gives you a re-roll of 1's on the wound roll but reduced your fight value by d3. With us both having F4 this wasn't so useful to me. Mike, on the other hand, could do Piercing Strike which increase their strength D3 if they win but reduced their defense D3 if they lose. Maybe if I won the duel roll more often this might have been good for me but with Dwarves high defense (7 usually) even this reduction may not have a huge impact. But the increased strength really killed me, often letting him wound on 4 or 5 instead of 6.
The two concerns I have are more about tournament games. First, not only the time it takes to decide when to use new Heroic Actions or Special Strikes but the additional time it takes to resolve these (re-rolls, rolling to determine the increased strength, etc.) will add to the length of the game turn. This will lessen as people become more comfortable with the rules but even then I still worry the game will take longer. The second concern is about the use of the Special Strikes themselves. Some models, like the dwarf warriors are armed with axes, making it easy to decide what Special Strike they could use. But, do you declare every time or simple tell the opponent "all strikes are Piercing unless I say otherwise" which is how many people currently handle two-handed weapons. Then there is the issue of warriors armed with two-handed weapons. The rules state that, unless it says they are unarmed a model always has a hand weapon. So, does the model now need to have that weapon modelled on it (it never did before)? And if you choose to use the hand weapon instead of the two-handed weapon can you use a Special Strike and if so which one. So for our game we decided that models such as the Uruk-hai berserker has both a two-handed sword and a dagger (this is generally how it was played before). In this case, if I used the dagger I could have used the Feint strike. In cases like this, I don't like the idea of modeling something that is assumed to be their but I also think there needs to be some rule about what this hand weapon is (i.e. you can't just choose which weapon is best based on the special rule). My personal feeling now is that, if not specified, the hand weapon is always a dagger or sword thus making it easier to know what special strike that can use.
As you see though, these concerns are really only related to tournament games as I think in friendly games players could establish their own "house rules" to deal with odd situations. All in all, I'm very happy with the new rules and I'm excited to see a renewed interest in the game. I'm not sure how well this will stick but given the small crowd for LotR I feel that any new player is a big win for us.
My initial deployment found me placing my Uruk-hai crossbowmen on the second floor of a ruined building on my left flank across from Mike's Dwarf archers deployed on a hill on his right flank. To the right of the building I deployed Saruman and his bodyguard in hopes of getting some Sorcerous Blasts off on the Dwarf flanks. Finally, in the center I deployed my third Warband led by the Captain so they could go toe-to-toe with the Dwarves.
As the game began I managed to get my Shaman to cast Fury using a heroic channelling which meant the fate roll was a 5+ instead of the normal 6+. Saruman, on the other hand, botched his roll for Sorcerous Blast. The crossbowman killed one dwarf archer and that was it. On Mike's turn he called a Heroic Accuracy with his captain positioned by his archers. This allowed them to re-roll any failed in the way rolls. Even though I had hid Saruman behind some Uruk-hai Mike was able to use his archers and the re-roll to force Saruman to take a couple of Fate rolls, which he passed.
The new rules are great! The game is the same game as the Lord of the Rings SBG but has definite tweaks to it that give the game some new life and new challenges. The new options for spending Might are very cool. They give characters a chance to use Might when they might not normally do so. For instance, Mike's Dwarf Captain leading the archers used his two points to call Heroic Accuracy which reduced Saruman's fate and wounds to the point where one lucky shot was enough to kill him. With how far out of the battle that model was, without that use of Might for that action that figure may well have ended the game not having used any might at all.
Heroic Channeling is another great use of Might. Using it on my Fury spell meant I saved wounds on a 5 or 6. I have almost never made a fate roll in the past but with it being 5+ I actually passed three or four. Considering that is about all my Shaman is good for I think I'll be using that move with him in the future.
The other big change is the added rules for weapons. For my Uruk-hai, they could use Feint which gives you a re-roll of 1's on the wound roll but reduced your fight value by d3. With us both having F4 this wasn't so useful to me. Mike, on the other hand, could do Piercing Strike which increase their strength D3 if they win but reduced their defense D3 if they lose. Maybe if I won the duel roll more often this might have been good for me but with Dwarves high defense (7 usually) even this reduction may not have a huge impact. But the increased strength really killed me, often letting him wound on 4 or 5 instead of 6.
The two concerns I have are more about tournament games. First, not only the time it takes to decide when to use new Heroic Actions or Special Strikes but the additional time it takes to resolve these (re-rolls, rolling to determine the increased strength, etc.) will add to the length of the game turn. This will lessen as people become more comfortable with the rules but even then I still worry the game will take longer. The second concern is about the use of the Special Strikes themselves. Some models, like the dwarf warriors are armed with axes, making it easy to decide what Special Strike they could use. But, do you declare every time or simple tell the opponent "all strikes are Piercing unless I say otherwise" which is how many people currently handle two-handed weapons. Then there is the issue of warriors armed with two-handed weapons. The rules state that, unless it says they are unarmed a model always has a hand weapon. So, does the model now need to have that weapon modelled on it (it never did before)? And if you choose to use the hand weapon instead of the two-handed weapon can you use a Special Strike and if so which one. So for our game we decided that models such as the Uruk-hai berserker has both a two-handed sword and a dagger (this is generally how it was played before). In this case, if I used the dagger I could have used the Feint strike. In cases like this, I don't like the idea of modeling something that is assumed to be their but I also think there needs to be some rule about what this hand weapon is (i.e. you can't just choose which weapon is best based on the special rule). My personal feeling now is that, if not specified, the hand weapon is always a dagger or sword thus making it easier to know what special strike that can use.
As you see though, these concerns are really only related to tournament games as I think in friendly games players could establish their own "house rules" to deal with odd situations. All in all, I'm very happy with the new rules and I'm excited to see a renewed interest in the game. I'm not sure how well this will stick but given the small crowd for LotR I feel that any new player is a big win for us.
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