A couple
weeks ago the brunette scheduled a weekend of gaming in honor of my fourth
decade (achievement unlocked.) It was a
good time and had the additional benefit of letting me throw some actual dice
in actual contests.
Friday,
Squish and Cherylkat came over for a game of hero realms. This is White wizard’s fantasy version of
star realms--still pissed I missed the kickstarter. We played the collaborative version against
the guild boss. Squish and I got
eliminated early and went off to man-cave land to look at custome light sabers
on line. Hero realms is a better
balanced game than star realms in my experience; not because it functions any
differently but because the card selection, distribution of abilities, and
price-to-value is better distributed.
There are no screaming deals.
Also, the mechanics and naming conventions just work well for me on an
intuitive level.
After the
game ended Cherylkat went back to her place and grabbed Corc’s old ultra sabers
dark initiate. We charged it up and
spent an hour or so talking about games while taking practice swings at
imaginary sparring partners. It was all
very low-key—a really nice evening.
Saturday
started early with KC bringing over some humans for some blood bowl. We have this tradition where she brings over
some beers to try with the brunette followed by fantasy football. I won the starting roll and chose to receive.
We fought it out over a brutal quarter.
My dwarves, the Strong blow Maulers, caught the humans off guard and
were able to move in and block down most of the opposition and pick up the ball
turn 1. There was a lot of blocking and
counter-moving which lead to the loss of one of my blitzers and 3 of her
players all due to bad injuries. The
quarter ended with my runners breaking out of her closing net and scoring
despite several close moments and fumbled balls.
I am
definitely getting better at BB. Playing
dwarves really helps. I am always going
to be out-threated, so my job isn’t to out maneuver my opponent but rather to
figure out what I need to do, make that play, and use whatever players I have
left to tie up/tackle the rest of the opposition. I am getting faster. I am reading WMTG’s 3d printed block dice
consistently. I am nowhere near a 4
minute turn but that was always going to be a long-shot. I wish I could play more/longer games but the
apatite just isn’t there for most of the larger group. The video game has ruined them for table-top
play—not that I blame them.
That
afternoon/evening, Cherylkat returned with light saber in hand—got to get me
one of those—and we set up for a demo game of frost grave. We got through 3 turns before we had to make
room for pathfinder but by then Cherylkat was hooked. It is fun watching people discover the value
in a treasured property like frost grave.
Since she lives within walking distance, I can actually get some games
in with her. We’re thinking about making
campaign bands and playing through as many of the scenarios as we can
manage. WMTG, Shoggoth, and I were
heading in this direction anyway so it looks like frost grave is going to be a
thing for the foreseeable future. I will
have to build up a couple warbands—oh, the horror—but this looks totally
doable.
We
finished the evening with a quick game of skull and shackles in the pathfinder
adventure card game line. We are into
adventure deck II which is…interesting.
The game is seriously challenging compared to rise of the rune
lords. The Characters are better
balanced but the scenarios expect you to use that balance to collaboratively
overcome odds and resource limitations.
I have never felt entirely safe—even in the introductory
adventures. We are really loving this
game.
Sunday, DQ came over for some good old fashioned warmachine
box set battle. Death quaker has not
played in a long time. Her base models
came from the MK I battle box—Metal Cryx.
Her List:
This
came in at 2 points over the 0 point standard but we figured whatever. After all, how much use was she going to get
out of that defiler anyway?
My List:
I want to start out by saying this was in
every way a non-standard game. I used a
3x3 frostggrave mat for our board since it was the only thing that would fit on
my kitchen table. I was playing a bog standard box set caster; she was playing
one of the queens of tournament play.
This was more about her learning the game and me testing Kozlov’s limits
than any kind of formal competition—and yes, I knew I was in for a rough time.
Game 1:
The
board was a ruined ice field covered in battlefield wreckage, industrial ruins,
and huge chunks of glacial ice. I took
first turn, charged forward and tried to snipe out some chicken jacks with the
decimator—defense 14 is really annoying BTW.
She came up, got parasite on the juggernaut, and sprayed a couple
things. I dropped chosen ground,
obliterated the slayer, and passed the turn.
She cast scourge on my grouped up caster and jacks, knocked all of them
down, and dog piled him into a bloody mess.
Game 1—Cryx—ouch—that hurt.
Game 2—same lists:
Deathquaker
chose first turn. I opted not to advance
much trying to extend the window for the decimator to remove channelers. The defiler and a deathripper moved up my
right flank while the slayer and the other deathripper moved up the left
flank. I was just far enough up for
Deneghra to arc parasite on to the decimator.
There
was some back and forth as I tried to limit her ability to maledict me into
oblivion. My efforts failed as the
juggernaut caught a face full of crippling grasp. The defiler poked its head around an outcropping
to spray and channel sludge all-over the decimator. Then a deathripper ran up to engage my mildly
inconvenienced gun platform.
Turn
three, I remembered to upkeep chosen ground.
I had a plan. It might not have
been a good one but it was a series of actions that would let me deal out the
most damage. Both jacks got max focus. Kozlov popped feat and charged forward to
clear the deathripper off the decimator.
The juggernaut—poor juggernaut—charged the slayer and managed to hit it
once with its open fist. The decimator
charged the defiler and left it in bad shape.
Deneghra allocated focus to the slayer, moved up, popped feat, and cast
ghost walk on the slayer. The slayer
charged out of combat and splattered Kozlov.
Game 2, Cryx—ouch again.
Thoughts:
1.
Setting aside the shortened board size and
slight points imbalance, this is why tournaments run a 2 list format. With a 14 inch control range and chicken
jacks running 14 inches at no focus cost thanks to powerup, Deneghra is almost
guaranteed a free hand to cast whatever she wants wherever she wants. She might lose the vector next turn but at
that point, who cares. Even on feat turn
Kozlov cannot make up the difference in threat range.
2.
Deathquaker played two solid games. I do not want to make it sound as if I lost
because my list wasn’t up to the task.
She made best use of the tools at her disposal. The odds were in her favor but only because
she played well.
3.
These games exemplify my “concerns” with
Kozlov’s viability. Against a somewhat
equivalent force (defense, armor, and threat range) he plays a solid to
excellent game. This is particularly
true if you can give him faster models like eliminators, gun carriage, Uhlans,
and Drakhuns. However, against a force
with better threat ranges or lockdown capacity, he has no game. Defense 12 or better (basically all of Cryx)
requires boosting to hit reliably which severely limits his battlegroup’s
damage potential.
4.
I do not think this would have gone any better
against the current Cryx battle box. It
still significantly out threats Khador while maintaining stupidly high defense. Against this kind of threat, big red has to
one-round its targets but defense 13+ limits the likelihood.
5.
We are probably going to play some larger games
in future. I am likely to take the ice
queen or lady Z into those fights—casters with more resources to deal with
Deneghra’s nonsense.
Overall, good games, good times, and good
friends. I appreciate the chance to face
down a larger cast of opponents. I feel
like I am a much better player than I was in 2014. I can sit back and objectively enjoy the
experience even if winning is a challenge.
So…40
and stuff. I’ll do something a little
more introspective on the topic soon.
For now though…great celebration with good friends. On to light saber shopping.
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