Or the big Warmahordes rant.  Okay, not that big.  Perhaps a little rant.  Or not even a rant, but more of a critique.

Well, the problem is this.  For years I have had a lot of Hordes models of the druids of the Circle Orboros.  I love the look of the models.  I like the fluff behind the whole game setting, it's better and more consistent then other brands, as the characters both die and / or evolve over the years.



And that they reflect this in the rules by bringing out epic or alternate versions of the models.  Sure, it's a marketing ploy to sell more models of the same caster, but your not OBLIGED to use the evolved versions, it's all in your hands wether you want to play version x or version s of a warcaster or warlock.

Okay, that doesn't sound to ranting yet now does it.

My issue is with the gameplay of the whole shabang.

I've been playing MkI and now MkII, and one thing is still the same.  No matter how big an army or played battles, the one who charges first wins almost by default.

The defensive stats are in my opinion way to easy to circumvent.  Knock Down and Stationary effects aren't as uncommon anymore as they used to be.  Basic troops can be boosted just a tat to easy to raise MAT or RAT.  The MkII line of sight rules are to simplistic making it to easy to pick out a warcaster or warlock amidst his force or in between a heap of scenery.

Same goes for ARM, you can punch through just a bit to easily as everything gets bigger and stronger with each expansion... but not tougher.

So this results in a game in which people are shuffling left or right a few inches to get their range over the opponents range and then charge in.  Heck, you can suicide bomber enemy models by sending in light beasts one at a time during several turns, as long as you can outrange the distance.  Whatever big beast your charging will die or stop to be effective, and your big guy is probably undergoing the same fate at the mean time.

This result usually in a face off between the leaders of the force, at best supported by the few ragged survivors of 'charge fest'.  Counting that you got Focus and Fury to bump and play around with rolls again... the charging caster wins 9 out of 10 times.  Botched rolls do not count as a game mechanic or a viable tactic, that is hust sheer (bad) luck.

I can only say this ain't fun gaming to be honest, and even though I dropped in the Journeyman League full of high spirits, I'm now doubting I'll ever finish painting off the rest of the models I have lying around, unless it is to drop them unto eBay or trade them for other models I need and like (read: Chaos Dwarfs).

I'm probably withdrawing as such; and the models in the gallery on this blog will probably end up 'sponsoring' another Myth cloth for my collection.



What to do about all that?  Well, I seem to have issues with two things, and they might be solved a little by what I think these things:

1. Return partly to the old versions of Line of Sight and having to test or otherwise target the closest model like in some other games would up the tactical shuffle over the board.

2. A kind of countermagic.  This would soften up the spelles as you now can cast around freely.  You'd be having to chose what spells to draw out and which to try and cast.  And I'm not talking irresistibles like in WFB, but something like you cast normally, and the other could counter in the same way for one.

Both are vague ideas, and can certainly be philosophed about further, but that is food for the game designers under us, these are just my feelings about the game, drawn from having played or read quite a few known and lesser known game systems during my wargaming 'career'.

Stuff to think about in the future and perhaps 'house rule'? 

Cheerios

I went to the play the Return to Ravnica yesterday, and even though I have been whacked around little a baby in his maxicosy buggy in a destruction derby for muscle cars, I must admit this new set is a HEAP of fun.  

The synergy between the colours in this set is superb, and it has some cool mechanics... and decisions.  You have to choose which way you want to swing your deck, focussing on one 'guild' (a guild basically being the co,bination between two colours) gives you a nice card go together feel with a huge combo ability, or going more traditional with some more colours but not being able to or harder to play the ubercombo a guild deck can allow you.



This set is all about tactics, though as with any Magic game, especcially with drafts and sealeds, it also depends on the chance factor.

On the other hand there is the Hordes game, and I must say I love painting Orboros warbeasts, but... I feel the game lacks in some parts, most especcially for me: tactics

Charge first = win

Most of the time at least, the rest of your game basically comes from what I've seen so far and read on fora to either do some minor damage on something big before your charge, or back an inch or so off to be sure you get that charge.

This isn't tactics for to be honest, tactics are having blocks sweep around flanks, boxing in regiments and make sure the line can be held at all cost but preferably with lesser casualties then the opponent suffers.



Blood Bowl has a far more tactical appeal in my opinion for a skirmish ga,me then WarmaHordes...

Notwithstanding, I'm going through with the whole League; but I doubt I'll be playing every week, probably just one week out of each game month; spending more time with FNM during this set, it is, well, as I started with saying a great and fun set, and the current wizards support with additional Guild Achievements makes it all that bit fluffier.







Oh, and Magic just falls better to sell to the love then a ton of toy soldiers; but don't let me hear you tell anyone that's a reason ;-)

Tonight at TSA I played the second night of the Journeyman League, a League for some obscure fact I was currently running in a shared top spot... I knew this couldn`t last, and so I went into battle against the Skorne of Steven.



This game was madness.  I charged my Warpwolf on his Titan, exit the Titan.  An Argus charged a Cyclops, and that was one dead cyclops.  The second Argus charged the second Cyclops, and reduced it to a few hit points.



Kaya Spirit Fang salvo`ed the enemy warlock, who transferred some damage to the remaining cyclops, killing it.  Then the `master assassin` charged Kaya, failed to finish her off, and saw the warpwolf walk into her, tearing her to pieces.

Victory for the Circle in less then 15 minutes and 3 turns...


The second battle was a fail on all rolls.  Facing the dreaded boys in Blue, I had the winning hand when his earthquake shook down his own jacks.



I couldn`t charge my Warpwolf on Stryker due to my mistake of placing an Argus in between, and then forgetting to just walk into combat with the caster.  The Warpwolf would have made short work of the red headed warcaster.  Then, after three battles of incredible rolls, Murphy bit back at last, as Kaya, including popping her feat, managed to knock down Stryker with her first attack... and then only reducing him after a flurry of bought attacks of unboosted rolls -4 to damage to still 6 hit points.



Stryker got up, smacked Kaya to kingdom come, and saved the day for the Cygnarites.

One up, one down, still a nice average.  From next week on, the points are pulled up to 15, so I`ll be including the Lord of the Feast with the Starterbox force.

Tonight saw the debut of a second Orboros band (sniff, there goes my uniqueness), I saw a Gatorman posse running amok, a fresh Legion of Everblight troop joined the fray, so all in all where with around 15 players now competing in the League.  Not to shabby if you ask me!

So this will be the final model I`ll be painting for my Hordes force for a few weeks, as I really, really need to expand my Chaos Dwarf force, and won`t be having any painting time the comming week.

The Griffon was a buy without knowing it`s rules (I don`t have Dominion) nor knowing it was plastic, but I was pleasantly surpised by both of those.



The plastic is a good quality that allows for a light undercoat, not obscuring details, while ruleswise with his Long Leach rule, Flight ability and Parry animus, this light warbeast can be used as what I`ve dubbed a `focus assassin`, throttling him in with an enemy caster early on, to try and keep him occupied and saving his focus to fight back instead of distributing them to their warjacks.

Or to be just a sheer annoyance in general...

Fresh of the basing and varnishing line, the first `unit` for my Circle Orboros forces.

Sentry Stones are just that, stones you place as scenery on the table, and that is where they stay... before the magic starts to kick in, and the old rock starts to create troops to defend itself, and generally tries to be a nuissance to the opponents advancing forces.

 And gives Kaya a small anchor to `dance around` with evading the better combat casters of the opponent ;-)

So tonight the TSA Journeyman league for Warmachine / Hordes kicked off, and with only a single multiplayer under the belt, I threw my druidical forces into the fray.

My first battle was a win, againt another novice with only some mkI experience under the belt, and his Menoth forces.  I took a HUGE gamble by racing and spirit dooring to the otherside of the table in turn 2, and he failed to capitalize on it.







Beast of the match was the Warpwolf once again, taking apart 2 light, 1 heavy and Kreoss himself.

Second game was against an experienced player and his Skorne force.  I claim moral victory, as his Morghul needed all 10(!!!!) of her attacks before finally downing Kaya.  Had he failed on the last roll, the warpwolf would have had a skinny warlock for dinner.





Beast of the match: his to hit rolls, missing all 7(!!!) attacks against an Argus and 6 out of 10 in the final battle between both sides warlocks.

So far I have seen tonight already 8 different players: 4 Hordes and 4 Warmachine ones.  There was respectively 2 Skorne, 1 Legion of Everblight and 1 Circle Orboros, and 2 Menoth, 1 Khador and 1 Cryx.

I also know Nemesis has ordered his forces in the past week (Skorne as well I believe, which would make them the most present faction oddly enough), with at least one more Khador, one more Cryx, one Cygnar, a Mercenary and maybe a Minion force as well underway.

For myself as a rookie, starting with a clear victory and a close loss isn`t to shabby at all, and I keep being mightily impressed with the warpwolf, who cleaned up tonight the full Menoth force, and the Titan and a Savage in the second battle... that is 6 out of the 8 models that opposed me tonight, and he didn`t die once himself.

And so my starter box force (well, technically, as it is the alternate Kaya model instead of the one that comes with the box) has been completed.

She was actually done past saturday, but as I needed a fresh bottle of PVA I couldn`t do her base, but it did mean I painted the whole box between... friday late night and saturday evening.  Who said you needed much free time to be able to get a force done?



What I saw in my only game so far in MkII, is that this wild lass is a force to be reckoned with, as she is able to send in her animals, do serious damage as her Packhunter rule makes boosts to hit as good as unnecessary, and then Spirit them out of any tight spots.

On the other hand, she does have to rely on her animals, because both her melee stats, defenses, and Splinter are all but impressive, and she would be no match for the average warcaster or even other warlocks.  Kaya is a booster warlock, her force gets better because of her but on her own she only has her looks going for her ;-)

The Journeyman League



Roight, so this friday the League starts, and from my very limited experience, and having no clue what the majority of the opponents will be fielding (I do have the impression I`m the only Circle present though), I can say what I won`t be liking:

* Mass firing comming my way.  Luckily, this seems to be either the unpredictable Menoth firing going round mostly, so this should be managable in the first rounds.

* Light warjacks.  To many on the field, I know of at least 2 Menoth, 1 Cygnar and 1 Mercenary Grundback player.  And I fear the Everblights player Shredders actually more then his Carnivean, the last one I can tackle with the Warpwolf, but all those little nibbles could overwhelm my force easily.

* Knock down.  Unfortunatly, there is already 2 Kreoss`s, 2 Sorcha`s and a Stryker present...

I am going to have to rely on the one factor the Circle seems to have above all other factions: SPEED.  If I can`t manage to get the charge in, I`m in big doo-doo, and doing something seriously wrong...

It should be do-able against those lumberjacks of Khador, but I will have to hope I strike them hard enough that they can`t hit back.  The other heavies shouldn`t pose to much of an issue either, but this brings me on the territory I am fearing during the initial phases of the League.  A warcaster, with his focus saved up, is equal to a light warjack in defense and hit points, but hits better and usually just as hard.  This means, considering Kaya`s lack of melee skill, that not only I`m going to have to be able to do an Alpha Strike on the enemy, but see that the beasties get out more or less in one piece to be thrown against the warcaster...

Only time will tell, as experience at the moment is quite nill...

Well, doctor said I needed to do some relxation thingies without deadline pressure nor stress building, so I finally started my self teaching of drawing anime and the likes.

This is actually a work in progress, I'm going to digitally color it later on (perhaps today, perhaps in the far future), but with the WarmaHordes craze striking over at TSA, I tried making a chibi of Kaya and one of her puppies.

So I present, 'chibi effort very numero uno WIP' or better known as "Kaya's Warpwolf Bootcamp"

Days without posts, now three on a day... sometimes, you`re having one of these days where paint flows naturally from your brush and focus (or should that be in my faction, Fury?) isn`t lost to all kinds of other things...

The Feral Warpwolf is my big hitter for the start of the Journeyman League, and has to be the only big hitter until the limit is pulled up to 25 points in month 3.




Now, I was quite amazed by how he performed past friday, ripping apart the large Cygnar jack and the smaller shooter one, while severly damaging three other lighter jacks before being beaten to a pulp by Kreoss.

One thing I like is the beasts Forced Warping special rule, as this allows you to get the charge in quite speedily.  Just remember to keep Occulation on him before he is more or less charge range, the Stealth goes a big way in keeping him in one piece before thundering in.

Afterwards, I kept warping his strength, together with boosted damage this tends to make short work of most light, and seriously damage heavy warjacks and beasts apparently, as his relative high MAT coupled with Kaya`s special rule means there is no real need to boost his to hit roll. Okay, unless the dice go freaky on you, your guaranteed to hit with all three attacks, boost one Claw for the charge and regular boost the other two attacks, then buy two more Claw attacks.  Should be a nice package of whoop-ass this beast deals out... and he has to.

Because like all Circle models, he can deal but can`t take damage decently with his low ARM, as DEF is something quite easily negated around, especcially in the Journeyman start period where as far as I noticed are already two Kreoss`s around (knock down) and two Sorcha`s (stationary), each granting as such automatic hits.  And then there is Striker and his Earthquake...

But one handy thing, if you can save up the Fury and not get tempted to follow to closely (like, stay on your 12" command range and try to stay out of things like Lamentation)... after he damages the enemy, Spirit Door the beast back to Kaya, leech his Fury in the next turn... and launch this howling torpedo again!

If you can keep repeating this, not only are you lucky, but your opponent is doing seriously wrong... and will be becomming very, VERY frustrated.

Argus`, Argus`ses, Argussi... I don`t know, wild dogs wil have to do hehehe.  Last friday still undercoated on the table, yesterday they got their paintjob (well, actually one already friday during the night), today basing and varnishing.

Part of the Starter Box from Circle Orboros, I have two of these puppies in my force.  Now, I know in MkI they where average at best, but since MkII they are quite the handy dual torpedo doggies.

They benefit from Kaya`s rule that all the animals in her control area have their MAT raised by 2, but otherwise I see them as tag-team hunters for light warjacks and equivalents, one using his (boosted) Bay attack to lower the opponents DEF to 7, the other one charging in for the Combo Strike special attack which at P+S 16 does a serious bitey chunk out of their opponents.

Bar that, I also like the models, so I`m going to try and take them in my warband as it progresses anyways, with a nice Fury amount and high treshold rating they are quite feasible to stay in control anyways.  Unless they are in combat, just let them frenzy then lol.

Next on the list, the Warpwolf, then Kaya.  Should be able to do the whole starterset (well, equivalent, I run an alternate Kaya model, nicer sculpt imho) before the kick off the comming friday.

So I played my very first Warmahordes games in the MkII system yesterday evening, and it sure changed since my MkI days, most notably with LoS and Screening by which I made some mistakes without to much baddies (call it sheer luck, Kaya left with one damage point).

We played a six way battle with 3 players a team, and it turned out to be the Battle of The Sexes, with my team consiting of Lylith, Sorcha and Kaya, and facing of Striker, Kreoss and Grundback.

Yes, it was `starter box` forces as it was the final `get aquinted to the rules` game before the Journeyman League starts next week.  Or first aquintance...

I went for the easiest way to learn rules, and torpedoed my three Warbeast onto the mass of Menoth and Cygnar jacks opposing me, in the end knocking out the big Cygnarite one and two small Cygnar jacks, and as good as reducing to a scrap-pile two lighter  Menoth jacks in a concentrated team play with the cold ass russian gall by my side.



We lost in the end as first Lilyth fell, and then Sorscha, so Kaya choose discretion over valor and left the battlefield with her remaining Argus.  It did take uberboosted Kreoss himself though to finally take out the Warpwolf who made some insane rolls ripping jacks apart left and right... and then be Spirit Doored to safety.  I like Kaya, previously alone for her looks, now for more...

The Journeyman League

So the painting continues on the faction, and the third model after eKaya and her companion Laris has been finished, The Lord of the Feast.




Desperate times call for desperate measures, and this `guided infantry slayer` will be the upgrade from my starter box (which comes at 11 points) to 15 points.  Plans are to flunk him into infantry, do his sword combat shennanigan thingie, then with the aid of his Virtuoso skill Ravenshift his ass out of there before retaliation.  Or if there are shooty guys at the other side, raven in and slaughter all muahahahahaha *kuch*

Amd yes, i know I didn`t add the bull skull to the model, but it was fiddly enough when i tried to first assemble the `antler array` two years ago, and as I gave up on that I think the head is *somewhere* in my bitz box... which consists of two large, unsorted, all mixed and matched curver boxes and i ain`t gonna look for the small gizmo in that junkyard.  And he look mean still anyways without it...



Now I`m gonna start painting on the starter box models, as I need to finish models before the wednesdays before a League game, in order to allow varnish to dry and stuffsies.  And I need to pluck out more KR`s to accomodate the big beasts lol...

Okay, so I ment it when I said I needed to paint like hell, so today I finally finished painting Laris, almost a year after his mistress Kaya.





I really like the Circle models, and Kaya in particular, though a tat pitty that she is an animal caster opposed to all those cool construct models in the warlist.  I also didn`t like basic Kaya, so I bought her epic version.

Now it seems for the Journeyman League you need the basic version, so now I ordered her alternate form model, which looks better in my opinion battle box version.

But here some more pictures of the finished lass and her puppy dog:

Okay, so come september we're apparently starting a Journeyman League on TSA for the War Machine / Hordes game system of Privateer Press.





I dabbled with those rules a little pre 'mark II' and after nigs and nags of my buddies decided to step in, with the Orboros faction I have lying around.



First problem: it has to be started with a basic faction box, and guess what I never bought... I have all the beasties though; but I didn't like the Kaya model (love her as a warlock though) as I got the epic version model, so I ordered the basic version alternate edition, she looks way better in that version...



Epic Kaya is also the only model I painted up so far...

Second problem: probably time issues and selling it to the missus, not to mention the entries for Brush Slave and my Mordheim band that have to get finished asap now.  This are going to be loooong paint nights the comming weeks...


The 'good' news, I'm getting motivated again after the summer recess :-D