Totengräber's Workpläce

Brian and I decided to play HellDorado again last night. We still didn’t use the Terraformation rules and the table we used was a 2′x2′, so a full 6″ shorter than normal. The store was really busy, so there wasn’t much room for us to get a bigger area to play in. We deployed with the bases touching the back edge of the table. We set up a hill, and some cover-providing and LoS blocking terrain.

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It looks like Zac, who runs the excellent gaming news site, Tabletop Gaming News, is closing the doors on the site and offering it up for sale due to some ISP issues. Man, this sucks! TTGN was one of the sites I checked out daily and I don’t know how many news nuggets have gotten me into new games or informed me of changes to the games I play.

Unless someone buys it and keeps it going, I guess this is “Farewell!” to one of the best sites on the Interwebs.

I showed up at the store around 6pm last night for our weekely Tuesday fix of 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons. There were 7 players and our Dungeon Master (DM), Dave. We’re playing the “Keep on the Shadowfell” adventure, which some of the group have played through part of.

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It seems like a lot of roleplaying has kinda jumped into my gaming life lately. I’m not sure I’ll post about it all that much, but I figured this time is appropriate.

I was invited by Dave, one of the employees at Games To Die For, to play in his 4th edition D&D game. Originally, I wasn’t too sure about it as all the opinions I’d heard about this edition so far have said it’s like World of Warcraft: The RPG; basically, it’s a video game on paper. I have so far watched a session and played in one and it seems like good ol’ D&D with a few enhancements. Granted, the whole “powers” thing can feel like the action bar in WoW, but D&D has had “once per encounter” and “at will” powers for a while, they just weren’t called that. “Marking” felt like WoW at first, but the difference is really plain when you look at it.

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I showed up to the store last night to a bit of “drama”. It seems the store owner had commented that if a Flames of War player wanted to use one of the two “good” tables, they would have priority over anyone else who was using it for a non-Flames of War game.

I have a few issues with this logic.

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I don’t seem to do well with turn by turn battle reports, so I’ll just try to give the gist of what happened.

In my previous post, I listed the army list I was going to be using. Here is Joel’s list:

• Fiona the Black
• Alexia Ciannor and 5x Risen
• Steelhead Halberdiers x6
• Sea Dogs x6
• Bucaneer
• Mariner
• Mangler
• Dougal MacNaile
• Bosun Grogspar
• Lady Aianna and Master Holt

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Maciej posted some news and some preview images for some new minis coming out here. The top image is Dr. Tenebrous and the Necro G.I.s. The Necro G.I.s have some cool abilities whn paired up with the good Doc. In the teaser pics, I am not sure what all of them are, but I’m pretty positive one of them is Dr. Mercury, who is named for one of the guys I know on-line and who’s playtested a lot of the newer miniatures games.

Looks like some cool stuff is on the horizon. Now I just need to et caught up on the current releases (Rook, Francis Gator, Father Oak, Acorn, Trail and Blood Rose).

With a lack of much else to do on our weekly Thursday gaming, Joel and I decided to play Warmachine Mk II. The rules seem to be good so far, so there’s no real reason not to give them another go. This time, instead of 25 pts, we’re bumping the level up to 35 points. He’ll be playing Fiona, Alexia, a Mangler and some Pirate ‘jacks and units.

My list will look like this:

• Magnus, the Traitor
• Steelhead Halberdiers x6
• Stannis Brocker
• Mule
• Mangler
• Renegade
• Vanguard
• Dirty Meg with Talon Jack Marshalled
• Orin Midwinter

Now that I know what some of Magnus’ spells do and with the effectiveness of Orin (who I expect will get a lot of attention from Joel’s army due to last game’s results), I hope to do much better this time. I swapped out the Nomad for a Mule just to get some more ranged attack action since last time his Freebooter(?) kept lobbing AOEs into my troops.

To really make my army choices complete, I need 4 more Halberdiers and a full unit of Devil Dogs, but I am at a point right now that I’m not sure I want to invest more cash in Warmachine. We’ll see what happens the more I play.

Our local store, Games To Die For, is running a Warhammer 40,000 (40K) campaign called “Spoils of War”. We’re using a hex map to determine territories and there’s no real “end to the campaign. We have to play our games in a two week period and could have to play several games based on who attacks who.

Chris and I had scheduled our game for this Thursday due to the fact I had attacked one of his territories. I am familiar with Chris and I wanted to get in a game. I had no real visions of winning, I just wanted to expand my list of opponents. Chirs had canceled our game on Wednesday, but ended up calling me at about 5:30pm yesterday to say he was at the store and ready to play. Normally, I work on a list and read up on my special rules during the day before each game I play. In this case, I didn’t have that opportunity and as a result made some tactical errors. I’m not saying Chris wouldn’t have won anyway, I’m just saying the game might have been a little less one-sided and more fun.

Here’s the list I used:

• Captain Kayvaan Shrike
• Scouts x5 w/Telion upgrade (sniper rifles, cloaks, missile launcher)
• Tactical Marines x10 (missile launcher, meltagun, power weapon, rhino)
• Assault Marines x10 (flamer, power fist, power weapon)
• Terminators x5 (storm bolters, power fists, power weapon)

Chris’ list (from memory):

• Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor (daemon weapon)
• Khorne Berserkers x10 (rhino w/havoc launcher, power weapon)
• Chaos Space Marines x9 (power weapon, meltagun, mark of Nurgle)
• Chaos Space Marines x5 (power weapon)
• Land Raider (lascannon, heavy bolter, havoc launcher)

Mission: Annihilation

Deployment: Dawn of War

We set up terrain and deployed our first units, which according to Chris’ description of the deployment, led me to believe I had to deploy Shrike and two Troop choices. Of course, this was a silly assumption as he didn’t deploy his own HQ.

Basically, it came down to his units assaulting and killing my units. He ended up with 4 Kill Points to my 1. No big deal, he gets to keep his territory, I learn some mistakes I made, and we had a good game. I look forward to playing more 40K games against some new opponents.

Fred, Joe and I met up yesterday to play the usual Star Wars Miniatures over at Games To Die For. We always play 150 points and use the most recent rules, except for Gambit scoring. I’m not a big fan of three-player games, but until we get more people to play, it’s going to be difficult not to do that. There are a couple of people who have expressed an interest, but haven’t sat down to play yet.  Before playing, I traded the new Lobot to Fred for Moff Jerjerrod.

Joe’s List:

• Canderous Ordo
• Mandalorian Captain
• Mandalorian Scout x4

Fred’s List:

• Arika
• Echani Handmaiden
• GenoHarradan Assassin
• Lobot
• Chiss Mercenary

My List:

• Greedo
• Bossk, Bounty Hunter
• 4-LOM, Bounty Hunter
• Garindan
• Jaraiah Syn
• Dengar
• Zuckuss
• General Dodonna

We ended up playing on the Endor Base map, which really sucks pretty bad since there’s a huge lack of cover for those out in the trees. For the most part, Fred and Joe fought each other until Fred used Arika’s “Blaster Barrage” and damaged some of my guys. I started firing in his direction, but managed to do little. Fred’s Handmaiden kept getting shot at and passed no loess than 12 Evade checks before dying late in the game. Arika did Blaster Barrage a few more times killing several of my Bounty Hunters. Three times Fred benefitted from Lobot’s Reinforcements ability, bringing in Zuckuss and a Human Scout twice and 4-LOM once. In the end, it came down to my 4-LOM vs. his Arika and GenoHarradan Assassin. My 4-LOM failed many times to hit him and Fred got one more Reinforcements to go off before I conceded.

All in all, it was a good fun game. I liked the army I played.

Earlier this week I pulled an Emperor Palpatine on Throne from a booster pack, so I think I should build a list with him in it.