So what's next?

There are a few things on the horizon for me, hobby-wise. I've been working on my Dark Elves for a couple of years now, and with the Quake City Rumble I finally feel like I can say I'm 'done' with my first army. Not 'done' as in 'done playing with them' or 'done painting them' or 'tired' of them, but I do feel a sense of accomplishment at having taken a fully painted and well performing army to a tournament. So at this point the only further things I'm planning to do with my Dark Elves are things I consider 'tweaks'. I've got some more Cold One Knights, and I want to bulk that unit up to 10 or 12. I've got some more Executioners and I want to bump that unit up to a good size and probably include a filler to help. I plan on continuing to use this army for fun and tournament play, and I'll probably make a fancier display board for them for next tournament season. I've got a couple more characters that I can paint and the new Black Dragon which I asked for as a birthday present. Those last two lead into the second thing on the horizon.

Storm of Magic was release this weekend. We had a release event all set up for today except for one small problem. GW didn't ship the books on time. I'm not sure if it was a global issue, or was specific to certain stores or regions, but we aren't getting it until Monday. So I guess I'll have to get a hold of it at some point this week and we'll reschedule our 'let's try out this new thing' event. Along with SoM are some new monster models, a few of which I've asked for as presents. I'm looking forward to painting those up and, from the sounds of it, a couple more spell casters. I've still got that GameZone Sorceress on Dark Pegasus that I've been looking for a reason to paint.

The third thing on the horizon is the one I've been thinking the most about this weekend. We've been talking at the store about doing another escalation league, and even better is that someone else is interested in running it. It seems like it would be cheating to walk in with fully painted Dark Elves, so I'm going to take this opportunity to spend some time with the Empire army I bought.

I had a fat gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so I purchased some additional stuff to give me some more list building options. Greatswords, State Troops, and...... Steam Tank! I couldn't resist, it just looked like it would be too much fun to paint. And with that my mind started working through how to go about painting them. After some reading and thinking, I've settled on not only a color scheme but a nice fluffy theme with some conversion opportunities that I'm already looking forward to.

For my Dark Elves I have a very loose 'Corsair' theme. Which basically means I put the big Corsair banners on as many units as possible. (Which reminds me.. I still have a couple of those to finish...) The colors, red and gold, were not typical Dark Elf colors. Most folks paint them something dark, like black, grey, purple, dark blue, etc. My Dark Elves are definitely more of a 'summer' looking army than the typical 'winter' look.

For the Empire I wanted something visually very different. Lots of the pictures of Empire armies are red and white, which was too close to my Dark Elves for me. So after some looking I settled on the blue and white of Middenheim. Middenheim has some nice fluff, being a fortress city on the top of a rocky mountain in the north of the Empire and home to the temple of Ulric, god of war, winter, and wolves. So I've decided to do a Middenheim 'Cult of Ulric' army. Lots of blue, gray, and white for colors, giving me a 'summer' army and a 'winter' army. (I guess then I'll have to figure out how to do Lizardmen and Vampire Counts as spring and fall.) Lots of conversion opportunities to add wolf bits here and there. I've already got some of the Knights of the White Wolf. No priests of Sigmar in this army, instead I'll be converting up some Warrior Priests of Ulric. Maybe even have a War Altar pulled by Dire Wolves instead of War Horses with a different statue on the back. I'm also trying to figure out how to make the mouths of the cannons look like wolves heads with open mouths. It should be fun.

So now I've got some bits hunting to do. The Space Wolves had a couple of bits that look useful. There are also just some plain wolves I could get to add to a unit here and there. The Warriors of Chaos cloaks are ok, but a little ragged looking. I'm also not sure about putting snow on their bases. Stone and gray gravel, definitely, but my concern with snow is that Empire models don't really look dressed for very cold weather and it might look odd to have them standing in snow.

Conversion thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Quake City Rumble 2011

This past weekend was the 2011 Quake City Rumble, put on by one of the local gaming clubs, Leadership 2. It was the first time I'd been to a Grand Tournament and overall I'd call it a positive experience. There were, I think, 105 players registered and 93 attended. I think I'll go back next year.

It was held at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, so there were different food vendors to choose from in the Farmer's Market on day 2 and a taco stand on day 1, ample parking, and was easy to find. The actual building was a little hard to find since the directions just said 'Fleet room' but none of the maps had a 'Fleet room' listed. But it wasn't too hard to spot the wargamers carrying their armies in from their cars. The Center is right on the bay so there was a nice cool breeze blowing through the whole time. All it in all it was a really nice spot for an event like this.

So, how did I do? Let's pull up my goals for this event -


Have fun.
Check.

I had a good time. Each of the 5 opponents I played, I would play again. Well, there was one army that I would prefer not to play again with this build of my army, but the guy was cool enough. I hung out with a couple of guys from Game Kastle between games. I talked with a few other guys from around the area. I saw some great looking armies.

Try to avoid stupid tactical mistakes.
Check

I don't think I did anything particularly wrong in any of my games. I'll go into more detail on the individual games further down.


Don't get annoyed at bad rolls.
Check minus

There were four specific rolls during the tournament that were particularly bad for me. The first one I didn't let bother me. The second one I watching in disbelief and was a little grumpy about, but then I got over. The third and fourth were during the same game and I was a little grumpy at them at first but then made sure to laugh about them.


Have my army fully painted.
Check plus.










So overall I did pretty well for myself in terms of my personal goals.

In terms of the numbers, I was 53rd out of 93. I won 2, drew 2, and lost 1. My painting score was 26 out of 30. Well, out of 33. The points went to 30 but they considered display board a 1-3 point bonus over that. My comp score was on the low side, but that's to be expected for a Dark Elf list with 2 Hydras. My sportsmanship score was fine.

I was actually tied with the guy above me, and the next two people were only a half point over us, and the next couple were only a point over. My overall total was 154.5 out of 200. If one of the draws had been a win I would have moved up about 10 places. So I guess the takeaway from all that is: if I'm going to bring a hard list I'd better win more.

Now to run through the games.

Game 1 versus Dan's Demons
Draw

I draw a Blood Thirster list for the first game. My Sorceress miscasts in the first turn and forgets Mindrazor and two other spells. This was the first really bad roll for me. I managed a draw by killing his big blocks of Bloodletters and Daemonettes, and by him being more cautious with his Bloodthrister than I would have been considering I lost Mindrazor. If I'd had all my spells for another round or two I might have won.

Game 2 versus Seth's Warriors of Chaos
Win

Seth was playing a list that was probably really nasty in 7th edition. I suspect this because he told me that it was his 7th edition list and he hadn't updated it for 8th yet. Lots of medium sized (for 8th, large for 7th) units of Marauders, a couple of Chariots, a Demon Prince, and a couple of small units of light cavalry. Unfortunately for him, my army is really really good at killing light infantry.
I think that pic is from turn 3, and a little more than half his army was gone. He was a great opponent though, took it all in stride, and he seemed like a really fun guy to play with. I'd be happy to play him again some time with better balanced lists.

Game 3 versus Dave's Vampire Counts
Loss

I don't know what it is about Vampires. I always have trouble with them. By this point I had a win and a draw, so I sort of felt the loss coming. And what a loss it was. Dave's army consisted of two hordes of Zombies, and a big block of Ghouls, and a Graveguard deathstar unit with the regen banner, 2 Vampire Lords, 2 Vampire Heros, and a Wight King. This was a hard Vampire list and I gave it the lowest comp score of any of the armies I played, but Dave was a nice guy and I gave him a fine sportsmanship score.

His combat Lord killed my entire unit of 20 Blackguard all by himself in a single round thanks to their Red Rage power or whatever it's called. It's the one where he gets to keep attacking so long as he keeps killing. Toughness 3 Elves in Heavy Armor against Strength 6 with Hatred..... so 20 rolls later the whole unit was dead and with it pretty much any hope I had of killing anything in his army worth any points. This was the second bad roll which I watched in disbelief and the end of day 1.

Game 3 versus Luke's Lizardmen
Draw

This game featured the remaining two very bad rolls. Luke was a nice guy playing a Lizardmen list with no Slann. Two Stegadons, one with the Engine of the Gods, a few Saurus blocks, only a couple units of Skinks and Salamanders, and an Oldblood on a Carnosaur. We both played cautiously with some good maneuvering, putting our expendable and harassing units out to redirect things in our favor. The first bad dice roll happened in turn 2. I failed to cast Power of Darkness with my Level 4 by rolling a 1, then killing a Spearman for a second die and rolling another 1. That left about 8 power dice on unused on the table and my Corsairs had just headed off down the left flank in the direction of the Stegs without magic support. As a result, the Stegs had my Corsairs for lunch instead of being cut to ribbons. In turn 3 my Blackguard and one Hydra charged his center Saurus block with his BSB in it and my Witches charged his right Saurus block that was worth a bonus Victory point. I won both combats by a lot and killed his BSB. But the center Saurus unit held with Insane Courage. This was the last really bad roll for me. As a result of those last few Saurus holding, my Blackguard was charged in the flank by his third unit of Saurus and my Hydra was charged in the rear by his General and Carnosaur. So that cost me a couple hundred points and the game ended a draw. If either of those rolls hadn't come out double 1's, it would have been a win.

Game 5 versus Scott's Orcs and Goblins
Win

Once again, my army is really really good at killing light infantry. Scott's army was a couple of hordes of Night Goblins, a horde of Orcs with spears, some Trolls, some Wolf Riders, a Mangler, and one of those new ginormous spiders. He was a nice guy, but just had no luck. My Shades shot his Mangler dead before it got a chance to move. One Hydra broke his giant spider by itself. My other Hydra charged his Wolf Riders, who failed their Terror check and ran off the table. My Blackguard with flaming banner, +1 attack from the Cauldron, and Mindrazor charged his Trolls and did 18 wounds killing, all 6 before they could do anything. It was nice to round out the tournament with a win, but the game was really one sided and I felt a little bad for the guy.

So, a good time all around. Now, here's a couple of pics of other armies that were there. Including this one that I'd seen on Bell of Lost Souls.




A nice looking Empire army.

An epic Skaven display board.

And lastly, a Tomb Kings army that won a couple of the painting awards.

'ard Boyz Round 1

Yesterday was the local first round of Fantasy 'ard Boyz at Game Kastle. We had a total of 6 people there, which from what I heard was double the number that showed up the year before. So instead of just rolling off to see who got which prizes we actually got to play.

My list is a slight expansion of my normal list. Sacrificial Dagger level 4 with a block of Spears to kill. Level 2 on a horse with Dark instead of Death (Death just never seemed to do much for me). Block of Corsairs, block of Black Guard, block of Witches, block of Crossbows, couple of unit of Shades, couple of units of Harpies, Cauldron BSB. The main difference was 2 Hydras and a stubborn Dreadlord on a Dark Pegasus with the Pendant.


Game 1: So this is what it feels like to fight Dark Elves.

My first game was against another Dark Elf player who came down from the other side of the Bay. His list was a good example of what I was afraid I would see at 'ard Boyz. The main feature was a unit of 65, count 'em, 65 Corsairs with 4, count 'em, 4 characters, 2 of which, count 'em, 2 of which were special characters. BSB with the Always Strike First banner, Dreadlord kitted up for challenges, Lokhir Fellheart and the Chrone. The rest of the list was a big block of spears with a level 2 caster, a Hydra, about 10 Cold One Knights, a couple of units of Harpies and a Cauldron.

The scenario was the 'random line of sight restriction'. We both had a couple of characters and a Hydra get stuck as reserves. Given the big differences between our approach to list construction, the game was quite predictable. I fed his Corsair unit small cheap things angled so his frenzy overrun would take him off the table while I killed the rest of his army. I shot, flamed, and Soul Stealer-ed his Spears down to just the character. The random line of sight caused a few charges to have to wait a turn. His Knights caught my Hydra in the side, and killed him, but then were eventually counter charged by my Corsairs and Dreadlord and taken out. My Witches killed his Hydra easily. I also shot at and cast Soul Stealer on his Corsairs and got them down to.... I think 10 or so by the end of the game, but the only expensive unit he managed to kill with it was my Black Guard. The result was a draw but I got one more point than him due to the special objectives. We both killed each others' cheapest unit and I killed his Hydra that came in from reserve.


Game 2: Thursday night, take 2.

My second game was against a friend who was playing a beefed up version of his Warriors of Chaos list that I had just played on Thursday. During that game his Hellcannon managed to kill all but 6 of my Witches and 3 or my Corsairs in its first two shots and his Knights broke my Black Guard, which isn't supposed to happen, and ran them down on turn 2. Yep, you read that right, at the start of my second turn I had lost basically my entire close combat force. He'd added a second Hellcannon, a second Warshrine, and some additional Warriors to one of his two blocks. Everything in the army that was markable had the Mark of Tzeech.

The scenario gave a special weapon to one core unit that gave them +1 attack and +1 strength. I went with my Corsairs and he went with the bigger block of Warriors.

Turn 1, I go first and move everything up to be ready to start charging next turn. His first Hellcannon misses and the second misfires, blows up, and kills his level 2 caster who was near by. This was huge. At that point we both sort of knew that we'd be playing out the game for the heck of it since my Dreadlord was lined up to charge his other Hellcannon. Well ..... games with dice .....

My Dreadlord fails his charge on the other Hellcannon. My Corsairs with the magic weapon and a Hydra charge in against his bigger block of Warriors and should rip them apart. I was not fortunate enough to get Mindrazor this time, but I did manage to get some good debuffs on his Warrior block that gave me a significant statistical advantage. But, well ..... games with dice......
He saves almost every wound I put on him and wins combat by a couple. The Hydra stays but my Corsairs break and run, losing frenzy and dropping the special weapon. The next turn he breaks the Hydra and runs it down just as the Corsairs rally and turn around. On the other side of the table, his Knights grind through the Blackguard and my Witches bounce off his other block of Warriors while my other Hydra chases his Warshrines around but doesn't manage to actually catch anything.

Time gets called in our, I want to say 4th turn. In the end I had killed his Hellcannon. He had killed his other Hellcannon and level 2 caster. I'd lost enough points to give him a minor victory. This game was incredibly frustrating. Given how poorly it started out for my opponent I should have been able to capitalize and get a solid win. Instead I watched my army trip over its own feet and then gently poke at his army instead of running across the table and tearing it apart as it's designed to do.


Game 3: Don't call it a comeback.

For the last game I played a High Elf played who was just starting to figure out how to play 8th. He was playing a Teclis list with a second level 4 and a bunch of small-ish for 8th but good sized for 7th blocks of infantry, 5 Dragon Princes, and a block of 30 Seaguard. After the game we talked about his list since he had felt frustrated all day and I gave him some pointers. I told him to drop the second level 4 down to 2 since Teclis used almost all the dice himself and she only cast 1 spell the entire game, put the two smaller blocks of Swordmasters into a single large block, either add a second rank to the Dragon Princes or get rid of them.

The final scenario was a pain in the ass. I don't think anyone at the event had anything good to say about it. There was a prisoner's dilemma chaos portal in the middle of the table which you could only hold with a character in base contact and was worth 500 points. If no one held it, the game was a draw regardless of what else happened. If both claimed it then no one got anything for it and you figured the result as normal. There was also a chart of random effects that you had to roll for every game turn. The strangest part was that at the end of turn 4 you rolled a die and on a 3+ the game ended then. In later turns you had to roll higher to end the game, so this didn't really make much sense unless GW really wanted these games to end on turn 4. All the games at the event ended on turn 4.

During this game we rolled the 'half movement' random effect twice. So suddenly two Elf armies who are used to zipping around the table are just kind of hanging back and looking at each other. Given that we expected the game to end after turn 4, this made the game frustrating for both of us. He had all his characters in a Phoenix Guard bunker, so I tried to get my Dreadlord to charge that unit and just tie them up away from the portal with Challenges. Thanks to the reduced movement he didn't make it and instead got stuck fighting a block of spears with Mindrazor. Now, I can make a pretty good number of reverse ward saves, but after two rounds of combat where I'm trying to make about 10 or 12 of them per round my Dreadlord was dead. Thanks to the reduced movement I couldn't get him any backup either.

At that point we sort of piled around the portal and things ground to a halt. My Witches locked up with his Seaguard and my Blackguard locked up with the Spears that just killed my General. Out on the flanks, my crossbows shot a unit of Swordmasters to death and my Hydra closed in on his Dragon Princes with some Harpies blocking them. On the other side my Corsairs and other Hydra were closing in on some Swordmasters after the Hydra flamed and paniced some White Lions. I moved my Level 4 with Spears and my Cauldron up to hold the portal.

My Blackguard were wiped out by his Spearmen with Mindrazor and then charged into my Level 4 and Spears. My unit broke but he decided to park on the portal instead of pursuing, which turned out to be a huge mistake since this was turn 4 and the game was about to end.

On my last turn I charge, break, and run down the Dragon Princes on one flank. My Hydra on the other flank breaks and runs down the unit of Swordmasters on the other flank. My Witches finally kill enough Seaguard to make them lose Steadfast and run them down. Those three combats on the last turn swing things to a minor victory for me since we both had characters on the portal.


All in all, it was a mixed bag. I had fun hanging out with the other players. I don't know that I can say I actually had fun playing any of the three games. I spent game 1 avoiding a deathstar, game 2 watching my army fail to perform, and game 3 watching both armies stumble slowly towards each other while the imposed turn limit crept up on us. Since there was no painting component, only a couple of the armies were painted. So while it was nice that the guy running the tournament made a point of taking photos of my army during games, I didn't really feel the sense of spectacle that I would get at even the club tournaments back in Virginia. I didn't have any annoying opponents, so I guess that's a plus.

After the GT in June I should have a bit more perspective since that one has both painting and comp, but at this point I think I enjoy tournaments with those scores included more than the 'ard Boyz format. I also think I prefer casual games, leagues, or challenge pyramids more than tournaments, but I'm not ready to swear off tournaments altogether.

I did manage to come in 3rd, so I advance to the next round. I don't expect to make it any further since I fully expect the next round to be full of lists on par with my first opponent, but that's ok.

Wherein I channel a certain High Elf player

I've been working on finalizing my list for the upcoming GT (Grand Tournament) in SF (San Francisco) in JN (June).

The list I'd been playing with was working well, except for the Cold One Knights. I gave them a chance but they never seemed to make back their points and just felt awkward on the table. So I tried swapping them out for some Dark Riders and Harpies, two of my must-have units from 7th edition. The Harpies seemed ok, so long as you don't try to use them for march blocking or redirecting.

The Dark Riders, on the other hand, just didn't feel right either. Everything moves so fast now and not being able to charge on turn one kinda takes the wind out of the vanguard move. As with the Harpies, march blocking and redirecting aren't really possible anymore. They just felt awkward. Fast enough to get to anything, but not really hard enough to break anything other than small units and war machines, which the Harpies could do for half the points cost.

I think I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like cavalry in this edition, at least not the Dark Elf options. Unless I'm willing to field a really big (and expensive) block of them, they just aren't worth it. Seeing as how I can often get my infantry blocks into combat on turn 2, and certainly on turn 3, the extra movement on the cavalry doesn't help.

So my newest variant is to have two units of six Shades and two units of five Harpies with no Dark Riders or Cold One Knights. The Shades are cheaper than Dark Riders, have better weapon and ballistics skill, and get two attacks. Plus the scout deployment lets me start them in good enough positions to go after soft targets the Dark Riders would have targeted anyway.

I tried this list on Thursday against WoC and Sunday against Dwarves. I tabled the WoC army in turn 5. The game against the Dwarves went all six turns but I rolled more sixes in a single game than I normally roll in 3 games combined. Needless to say, there's not much a Dwarf player can do with Witches doing around 10+ wounds every round and Corsairs with Mindrazor cast on them every combat round they fight in. By around the fourth turn my opponent felt the need to start pointing out the high number of sixes I was rolling. I agreed to give the guy a rematch some time soon, since I'd really like to see how the list performs when I roll normally.

At any rate, I liked how the dual Shade units felt much better than the Dark Riders. I'd still like to play a few more test games, but I think my list is pretty well set now.

A Fair Shake

On Thursday I got a chance to try the Empire again against some High Elves in a 2k game.

Things of note:
In my first turn I miscasted with both my casters and turned my level 4 into a level 2 and level2 into a level 1.

In my third turn all of my war machines misfired.

At the end of the sixth turn I still had most of my army on the table and my opponent had.... 5 models I think.

As we were playing the watchtower scenario, my opponent was victorious since he had a single character still in the tower at the end of the game. On points I would have solidly beaten him.

I definitely felt the sting of facing an elite close combat army with average troops, and the need the use magic and shooting to level the playing field. Not that Dark Elves don't like a good amount of magic and shooting, but with them it's more like 'which of my strategic weapons would I like to throw at which enemy unit'. With Empire it felt more like 'I'd better cut all the enemy units in half with shooting before they get across the table and then buff my troops so they can go toe-to-toe with whichever of them make it, otherwise I'm toast.'

All in all, I think it was a fun game. It definitely provides a different perspective on how the overall game works, which is useful, and I think I'll play them from time to time. I'm still not sure whether or not I'd like to spend more money on other Empire models or how much time I would devote to painting them, but I did enjoy it enough to keep experimenting.

Reply hazy, ask again later.

On Sunday I took the Empire for a test drive.

Or rather, I attempted to take them for a test drive.

I had previously tried to get a game in with them on Thursday, but due to various reasons was too late to find an opponent.

Sunday I was not to be denied and succeeded in making it to the store on time and had an opponent.

Game commenced but ... something was just not there.... what was it .... hmmm

Oh right, it was any semblance of decent dice rolling on my part. That was it.

So, while I did get to put the new guys on the table it would be completely unfair for me to judge anything about how the Empire performs as an army or anything about my list or strategy.

I'll give you an example. I was playing against Lizardmen and was fortunate enough to get the first turn. This should have been especially good for me since I had a respectable amount of artillery and the opportunity to, say, blow the Stegadon off the table before it had moved would have made for a nice opening to the game. It was not to be, however, as I let loose with 2 Great Cannons, 2 Mortars, and a Rocket Battery backed by a Master Engineer, some Outriders and a unit of Handgunners and succeeded in killing .... wait for it ..... 2 Skinks.

We shall try again on Thursday.

Some experimenting

So today I'm going to try a little experiment. I'm going to play an army other than Dark Elves.

Yes yes, I know. Sacrilege!

I went ahead and picked up the Empire army my coworker was selling and am going to kick the tires on it in a 2500 point game this afternoon against... Lizardmen I think.

My first attempt at an Empire list looks a little something like this -

Lvl 4 Wizard - Lore of Light
Lvl 4 Wizard - Lore of Life
Captain on Warhorse BSB
Master Engineer

Swordsmen x 25
Handgunners x 20
Greatswords x 20

Outriders x 5
Knights with Lances x 10
Knights with Great Weapons x 10

Mortar x 2
Great Cannon x 2
Helstorm Rocket Battery

Lots of magic, lots of artillery. The magic will mostly be for buffing the Knights and Greatswords so that they can mop up once the shooting has softened enemy units.

I'm still not sure about having 2 level 4 Wizards, but since you can actually squeeze 2 Lord level human characters into a 2500 point list I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm sure if I did the math I'd find that 8 levels of magic is a bit too much under 8th edition, but I'm not familiar with either of the Lores I'm going to be using so I figured having more variety to choose from would be better than not the first time around.

Results to follow.

Me? An organizer? Madness!

Today marks the end of the first week of the Fantasy Escalation League I put together at Game Kastle. So far things seem to be going along quite well. I've got a full ten people who have paid the entry fee and played one or more games, and at least one that hasn't paid just yet. People seem to be digging the format. There are several, like me, who are just playing with their usual painted armies. But I do have a couple of people who are actually working on building and painting as they go. I'm excited to see how things progress from here.

I've run plenty of gaming events before, but this is my first attempt at a wargaming event. I got to watch numerous IFL events, most of which went well and some of which could have gone better. Now I get a chance to apply those observations in a somewhat different environment. I'm sure that by the time it's over I'll have over-analyzed every little bit of it. Hopefully this is the first of many. If there's one thing I learned, it's that wargaming thrives with a bit of structure.

In terms of actual gaming, I got in two League games during the first week. One very close loss to a Lizardmen army which went down to the last attack roll of the game and one win against a new Scaven player. Both were very bloody, as 8th edition is proving to be time and again. I think the single biggest highlight from both games was the Scaven Warp Lightening Cannon taking out my Hydra in a single shot.

Still experimenting with different options for my Dark Elves in 8th edition, specifically with magic recently. One of my favorite builds for a Sorceress in 7th edition was a Level 2 on a Dark Steed with the Focus Familiar. At first in 8th I had tried putting a Sorceress in a big block of Spearmen, since 8th really likes infantry blocks, and hiding an Assassin in the unit to protect her. After some serious game changing miscasts I started having doubts about the wisdom of the 'bodyguard block'. So, time for a substitution. The Focus Familiar Sorceress is back, if for no reason other than the fact that when she miscasts all she'll blow up is herself. I've also been trying a fairly cheap defensive item on my casters, the common one that gives a 4+ ward save to the first wound suffered, hoping that it will help them live through two miscasts. So far I don't think it has actually helped. I'm not ready to give up on it yet, but I think it's time to start considering alternatives. In terms of effectiveness, she was my MVP against the Scaven. Being able to hide her behind a build and still have the range and line of sight to his units made the difference.

Miscasting for Fun and Profit

Got in another game of 8th Edition this past week at Game Kastle. This was the first full sized (2250 points) game I'd played and it was against a Warriors of Chaos army that was a bit of a hybrid. See, the guy had wanted to do a 'Troll King and his Court' army of all monsters and beasts, which I thought was a cool idea. But he didn't have enough points of just those so instead it was trolls, monsters, and a couple of small units of Warriors and Mauraders on foot.

By the start of the 3rd turn, both of us had miscast our wizards off the table, and mine had taken half of her bodyguard unit of Spearmen (Spearelves?) with her. The last few turns went very quickly what with us skipping a whole phase.

I did manage to win the game and can make a few observations.

1. Black Guard are still sick. Even with being limited to 20 per unit, and the other side getting to swing back, the extra rank's worth of supporting attacks and the ability to take a magic banner other than ASF and still be able to strike first due to their ridiculous initiative more than make up for it. They are pretty much guaranteed to out-kill anything the come up against since you can give them the armor piercing banner or flaming attacks banner.

2. The Pendant BSB is even better at holding up big monsters now. He still gets +1 combat resolution for having the banner, but the monster doesn't get +1 for outnumbering anymore. Now instead of the most likely outcome being a (GALLERY????) tie, the most likely outcome is that the monster loses combat by 1. The cheese, it is great. I foresee that I shall feel even dirtier using that combo in the future.

3. Bait and Flee is still a viable tactic, but it is much riskier and only really viable with Dark Riders and only really reliable against slower units. Harpies are still good for getting right up in the enemy's face on the first turn and directing them where you want them to go, but now that they flee on foot they are not likely to escape. Dark Riders are slightly more likely to get away as they get to roll 3 dice and drop the lowest, but enemy cavalry is still likely to catch them if you get close enough to force the issue. I had noticed previously that the longer I managed to keep my Dark Riders alive, the more likely I was to win the game. That was sort of when the Dark Elf army started to click for me, when I learned how to Bait and Flee to setup counter charges and keep the Dark Riders alive to rinse and repeat. I think in 8th Edition that will be an even more telling factor. I should keep track of that...... I suspect that I tend to win if I still have a unit of Dark Riders alive in the 4th turn.

4. Magic is dangerous. The Ring of Hotek is still nasty, you just have to get up close and personal.

Lastly, congratulations to Rushputin on being a Golden Demon Finalist two years running!

Progress

For the past couple of weeks I've hit up Game Kastle in Santa Clara on Thursday night. There seemed to be some interest in WFB on their forum now that the new edition was out. The first time I went, I was hoping to bump into someone who was looking for a game. It turned out that finding a person wasn't the problem, but finding an open table was. There were three different WFB games going on and a couple of games of 40k and a few other people hanging out that would have played if there was room. I didn't get to play that night, but for what I consider a great reason. I'll take 'we didn't reserve enough tables' over 'there's no one to play with' any day.

This past Thursday I set up a game in advance and we made sure to up the number of tables reserved for WFB. I played against a very nicely painted High Elf army at 1500 points. After this one experience, I feel like Game Kastle is going to work out nicely. The game room is a bit cramped, but that didn't bother me so much. I kind of like the crowded 'club house' feel. The people seemed pretty cool. The store itself has a couple of very nice advantages. First, terrain. There is a huge collection of pretty decent terrain available to everyone. And when I say huge, I mean there were ... I think 5 games going on and there was at least enough terrain for another 5 tables. And not just forests and foam hills. They have a nice variety of buildings, obstacles, monuments, etc. The second big advantage is that the gaming area is a separate room from the store, with it's own external door. That means that when it's time for the store to close.... wait for it.... they close the store and let the gamers keep playing. Apparently they trust their community enough to let the gamers clean up the area when they are done and lock up behind themselves. This is a big deal in my opinion. You don't have to worry about rushing out of work and fighting traffic so you can get your game in and over with before 9 pm.

The actual game itself was good. We were both still getting our heads around the new rules, so there were some occasional pauses to look things up, but I think we did everything pretty close to right. I would have won the game except for two things. First, I brought an Assassin built to kill characters (Killing Blow) instead of to kill monsters (Manbane) and he ended up in combat with a Dragon. Even needing 6's to wound, he still managed to put a wound on the Dragon. With Manbane for poison he would have ripped it apart easily since it was already down a couple of wounds from shooting. Second, my Hydra had his level 3 caster / general in one-on-one combat after breathing on and killing the remainder of his bodyguard unit the previous turn .... but didn't kill him. The mage has cast a couple of buffs on himself, one that caused any enemy unit in base contact to take 2d6 strength 4 hits at the end of every magic phase and another buff that raised the first buff to strength 6. I had forgotten about those and didn't dispell them during my magic phase. So, just as the Hydra's many heads were about to start arguing over which of them got to eat the tenderest bits of the mage, it took more than enough strength 6 hits to kill it and I managed to only save 1. Instead of a dead enemy general I had a dead Hydra. Those two things swung the game in his favor, but they happened late in the game and it was still a good time.

There is now some discussion of trying to do an escalation league at Game Kastle as well. I should check back by Legends and see how their plans are coming along....

First Blood

Finally got in a game of 8th Edition on Saturday. I went down to Legends in Cupertino to play with the store owner. Turned out that he didn't have time to play himself. However, he was trying to get one of his employees up to speed on the rules so they could start running events in the store, so I ended up playing a teaching game. *shrug* It's better than nothing. Plus, I had to make sure I understood the rules well enough to explain them to someone who was mainly familiar with the 40k rules but knew a pretty decent amount about the Fantasy fluff.

It's hard to draw any conclusions from that game. He was playing an Orc army that didn't belong to him and looked like it was a couple of editions old. We put together the best 15oo point list we could from the models we had available, and I tried to dissuade him from some non-optimal choices he was making based on his 40k experience (no, you really should make one big unit of Black Orks, and you should probably put your General in there instead of two small units and 5 guys to hang out with your General). But he had fun and we got through the game without any major issues.

I already like the Magic system better than the previous edition. Magic defense no longer has to be a list design requirement. I tried out a Level 2 Sorceress with the Tome of Furion (knows one additional spell) and was quite happy with the result. Taking the Tome always seemed like a waste to me in the previous edition since you rarely had enough power dice to successfully cast the couple of spells you already knew. But with the new rules for generating power dice, a single lower level caster can have significantly more dice to work with than before (7 on average, up from 4). Suddenly 15 points to know an additional spell seems like a pretty good use of points. Previously if you wanted to be more effective you had to spend significantly more points and another Hero slot to get another caster, just so you could get a couple more power dice to work with. Now, adding another caster just splits the randomly generated power dice between them and all you really gain is a couple more spells and maybe some additional magic items. Granted, those can be valuable in and of themselves if you are going for a heavy magic list. But now instead of needing a 'scroll caddy' you can turn that same amount of points into a decent amount of offensive magic. I had been playing a magic heavy list with 3 casters until 8th came out. It seems like adding more casters in 8th will result in diminishing returns. You might gain flexibility by adding additional Lores, and maybe some extra punch with additional magic items, but I don't see the power scaling up the way it did in the last edition. I think this it a good thing.

FAQ me? FAQ you!

I'm still working my way through the new 8th edition rulebook. Already, Games Workshop has put out a revision to their FAQ's. I see this as a good thing. Does it mean that the book was poorly or vaguely written? I don't think so, at least not more so than usual. There will always be questions that come up, and the best thing that they can do it address them quickly instead of just leaving them out there for players to argue over. Many of us still have a bad taste in our mouth from disagreements over how War of the Ring was supposed to work and haven't touched the game since. A timely FAQ could have avoided much of that.

The Dark Elf FAQ update was sparse. Only one of the few changes they made has me scratching my head. The Manbane + Rending Stars combo may have been over powered. It may have been cheesy considering that the Assassin was BS 9 and didn't take up a hero slot. But it was one of the few sources of high strength attacks in the army, has a short range, Assassins are fragile, and everyone expected to see the combo if you had a unit of Shades and an Assassin so they could keep their monsters away from him.

Seeing a change to the ruling doesn't surprise me. Changing the rule so that the extra +1 to Strength is up to the current player seems like a poor choice. Mental muscle memory in Warhammer is a hard thing to fight. Games go much faster once you get used to what you have to consistently roll. Having a stat that will flip back and forth based on who's turn it is is just asking for confusion. Plus, I'm having trouble coming up with a fluff justification for why a poison's strength would oscillate from one player's turn to the next. The only time it will come up, that I can think of, is if the Assassin makes a Stand and Shoot reaction to a charge. If the combo needed to be fixed, why fix it like this?

Square 1

This blog begins, as all epics, in medias res. That's Latin. It means 'in the middle of things'. But at the same time, also at a new beginning.

If you're reading this, then you already know that this is my wargaming blog. As I sit here writing up this first entry, I'm watching the beginning of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. The Indiana Jones films all start in medias res as well. Indy is already on an adventure when the film starts.

So, as this blog starts I also am already on an adventure. I moved clear across the country a couple of months ago and have already started going around and trying to find out what the local wargaming culture is like. I've found lots of people playing 40k, but not much in the way of Warhammer Fantasy. Which is unfortunate, since Fantasy is what I prefer at the moment. I've found some nice stores near my house, but haven't really found a place in the community yet.

In addition to the new beginning of finding a gaming community,Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition was just released yesterday. Games Workshop has made massive changes to the game, hopefully for the better. Everyone, regardless of how much experience they had playing previous versions, is back to square 1.

This is a wargaming blog, so you can expect some of the standard things from it. Painting discussion and photos, battle reports, etc. But specifically, at least for starters, this blog is going to be covering my efforts to find a home in the local gaming community and my thoughts on the changes between 7th and 8th edition, specifically changes pertaining to my current army, the Dark Elves.

So, away we go. I purchased a copy of 8th edition yesterday from my closest LGS, Legends in Cupertino. The book is huuuuuuuuge. Other people have already posted quick reference lists of major changes, so I'm not going to go into them until I've read the book more thoroughly and have something new to add.

In addition to getting it for a 10% discount I also got to chat with the owner of the store about it. He was hoping the new edition would generate some interest in the game, which he also prefers over 40k. Furthermore, he wanted to start up a Fantasy League in his store in the next couple of weeks. This is big progress. Not only is the closest store to my house potentially going to have a League, but the owner of the store told me to give him a call if I wanted to come down to the store and play with him. This store has only been open a couple of months (it's an expansion of a comic book shop), but it seems like it would be a decent enough place to play. It just needs some time to gather a community.

The next closest store to my house, Game Kastle in Santa Clara, had a couple of release day events. I wasn't able to attend them since I was working on getting scuba certified, but I'm hoping that those events went well. Game Kastle is a very nice store with lots of tables and people playing various games. The only thing it was missing was people playing Fantasy. Hopefully there will be more interest in playing Fantasy now that the new edition is out. I hung around the store a couple of times and it reminded me a lot of Game Parlour, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that in the near future I'll have two good, close choices of stores/communities to play with.

And if not, I guess I could just start playing 40k.