40K Friday Special Edition: Eldar Battle Reports

Just in case there's anyone else out there interested in seeing how some other people are playing the space elves in 7th edition, here are some links to video battle reports I have found and enjoyed:

• Eldar vs. Chaos Marines (Iron Hands) - I have an Iron Hands army too so this was fun to watch. Nice looking table, nicely painted armies.
• Eldar vs. Dark Angels - I also have a Dark Angels army so this was another doubly informative report. Another nice table.
• The Bellport Battle Bunker gives us 3 nice reports vs. Crimson Fists (another army of mine!) 
• Eldar vs. the 6th ed Marine Codex though it's still totally worth watching
• Two-Stage 3000 point fight - part 1 - really like the way this was done, it's very cool.
• Two-Stage 3000 point fight - part 2
• Skari has been doing batreps for a while now. Lately he's been running a combined Dark Eldar/Eldar force and it's fun to watch. 
• vs. Skyhammer Marines -  nice terrain in this one
• vs. Orks (with a void shield generator?)
• vs. another Eldar army
• vs. Space Marines - another really nice table and an old-school marine army.
• Finally MiniWargaming has a really nice fight between Eldar and Necrons that is totally worth the time. These guys do a great job - even the room they are playing in is interesting.

So there are ten reports I found interesting enough to share.  Tomorrow: my own non-video battle report.

5th Edition - OGL, SRD, and a new campaign?

Well WOTC set the RPG Internet on fire last week and there was some additional news of note this morning. Short takes below:

• 5E opening a lot up to the OGL: Good thing. I kind of like the limited number of published adventures out there but I'm not playing it so that's not really fair. I think the original OGL was huge for the hobby (it's how we got Mutants and Masterminds among many other things) so anything that embraces it is a positive, and the big name in RPG's coming back to it is a big, big positive.

• The SRD: a few are talking about what it lacks but I see the races, classes, alignments, gear, spells, combat rules, magic items ... all the standard elements of the D&D rules over the last umpteen years and editions. Looks like a pretty solid start to me.

• The DM's Guild: Well if you wanted to try and make some money off of those adventures you've been writing they're making it pretty easy now. Explanation of how it works is here. It's of limited immediate interest to me as I'm not playing 5th but it's an interesting model for letting other people play in your sandbox and get paid for it. I think reputation will play a big part in this, but that it will quickly sweep away a lot of other efforts for the low-hanging fruit: NPC's, new monsters, and short encounters that a lot of the DTRPG publishers like to sell. I do wonder if prices will settle at certain tiers for specific content or if it will be a race to the bottom with almost everything going to 99 cents. It will be fun to watch over the next year.

• That Ravenloft thing is coming back too. I'm glad to see something that is more than another campaign pulled over to the Realms. This one sounds like it's staying home and you can get there from anywhere so that's good. It's also cool that they have the original writers involved.
  
  It is, however, another update/rehash like the Tiamat adventure, the Elemental Evil adventure, and the Drizzt/Menzoberranzan/Underdark adventure - now it's the Ravenloft adventure. Lord knows there's plenty left - will we see a slaver's adventure? An S-series special adventure? A giant-heavy adventure? Planescape Redux? Another Keep on some Borderlands-centric campaign? I bet we see at least some of that. I would be interested in seeing something new though - something that's not a direct homage to one of the classics. How about a new classic for 5th edition? Even if it's in the Realms there's a lot of ground to cover. How about something in Chult with all of those dinosaurs running around? How about something mummy-ish in Mulhorand? How about Paladins vs. Liches in the Blooddstone lands? Ok some of those could be made tribute-ish but it's not required.  

It is cool to see activity on 5E - even if I'm not diving in to it I think it's important to the whole RPG hobby to keep it alive and active. I'm sure I'll take another run at it one of these days.

Green Ronin 2016

Green Ronin posted their plans for the year on their site and it looks like a pretty good projection for some games I like. Link to the article is here. My thoughts are below. In general though I am a fan of GR, both what they have done and how they have done it since Freeport and Mutants and Masterminds were first released.

• First up: Fantasy Age is something I know little about - I have not played Dragon Age, I haven't watched the Titansgrave web show, and I'm not really interested in Blue Rose. My standard attitude is "I have plenty of fantasy RPG's already." That said it seems to be doing pretty well for them and that's a good thing and having quality alternatives to D&D & Pathfinder out there is a good thing too, even if I never play them.
• The meat of it for me: Mutants and Masterminds!
• Cosmic Handbook Print Edition - I think the PDF has been out for a while but I like hardcopies for this game and I am interested. Don't know how often it will come up but it's a handy book for a GM to have even if your team never leaves the earth.
• Revised GM Kit - well I have the original and it's not like I need another screen but reference cards and a combat tracker sound interesting. 
• Hero High - I can confidently say I will never run a supers campaign based in a high school but the teen hero thing is a huge part of the genre, it's good to have options even if it's mainly for character background, and the original is one of the more highly regarded 2E books so let's see what comes from a new edition and 5+ years of thinking about it.
• The biggest single item for me: Freedom City 3E. It's an update of my favorite super-setting book in 30+ years of playing them. The 1E book was good, the 2E book took it to a new level, and my hopes for 3E are very high. With just the previous book and the 2E core book you could run a superhero campaign for years. Hopefully the new one does the same.
• Atlas of Earth Prime, once collected, will make a nice supplement for Freedom City but it's not the main attraction for me. Rogues Gallery is more of something I do not need more of. I went for their first two "supplement a week" programs with Threat Report and Power Profiles only to see them collected at the end of the year so I've waited on these for the full set. As much as I want to support M&M I'm not as much of a fan of the way these are produced as I used to be.
• Freeport for Pathfinder is getting a campaign, a bestiary, and some small encounter support - that sounds solid. I can't use it right now but if I return to d20 piracy and high seas adventure these will be on my list for a look.
• Song of Ice and Fire continues to get support which is cool. This one falls into the "It's not my thing but I'm glad someone is doing" category. If a group of players ever hits me up to run something like that,well,  I know where to go.

Looks like a busy year for them and a nice growth year for M&M in particular. I just hope I can run through enough of my on-again-off-again M&M Freedom City campaign to justify moving it all over to 3E when the time comes. 

Header Pictures

I've only had a few different top pictures on the blog over the last 6+ years but I decided with the new year I should change things up a bit. For 2016 I expect to post up a few different title pics depending on what we're doing around here. Lately the dominant gaming topic has been 40K Eldar, specifically Iyanden Eldar - so they get the top spot for now. Here's the full picture:

It's one of the many fine works produced for one of the more recent Games Workshop Eldar Codices.

Remember their new marketing slogan:

"Craftworld Eldar: For when you want to make people angry just by placing your army on the table"

That's all for now.

The Perils of Ebay ...

I order stuff on eBay all the time but this time and I don't always know which package is which when they arrive in the mail.

OK, so far so good

Wait ... what?

Ah ... OK then

Like I said I do a lot of business on eBay and I have never received packaging quite like that before!

Modern Marvels Session 3 - Enter Hercules!

We had a chance to get a game together but not all of our Pathfinder crew was available so we settled on ... Marvel Heroic! I ran it as a continuation of our previous games which you can see here:

• Session 1
• Session 2 
• Link to the campaign discussion that started it all

Yes, it has been a couple of years since we last played. I wasn't going to let that stop me - the boys are still interested, I have notes/recaps, and I'm making more of an effort to finish things I start 

With Paladin Steve joining the campaign he was going to need a character and I had one in mind as soon as the option to play Marvel came up - Hercules! He's brash, he's bold, he's unquestionably a good guy, and while his usual approach is to punch things he almost lives like he's playing in a big game - I knew my friend would have a good time playing him and that he would add a lot to the team. Steve took him on with no hesitation.

Apprentice Blaster continued with Black Panther while Apprentice Who continued with Colossus.

In a cut scene, Zeus summons Hercules then tells him that foolish mortals are monkeying around with the Serpent Crown again and it's time to intervene. "Go and get it before they hurt themselves or do something even more foolish" is the gist of the conversation. Herc is more than ready to help!

Emerging from a mystical gate hidden deep in a cave the prince of power isn't exactly sure where to go but the closest landmark to him is a large structure best described as an ice fortress. Closing in on it he notices two flamboyantly dressed men also approaching the place and decides to introduce himself as only the mighty Hercules can!

A brief but loud conversation (complete with backslaps and strong handshakes and promises of shared drinks later) ends up with Herc's new friends "Black Panther" and "Colossus" agreeing to investigate the ice fortress as they too seek the Serpent Crown.

Seeing no obvious entrance Hercules challenges Colossus to a contest - "Let us smash our way through this ice" - basically the first one to something interesting, like an interior room, wins.

This is one of the reasons I love Marvel Heroic's milestone system - it directly ties XP into character traits like this in a really fun way.

Swinging away, the two mighty-thewed heroes bash a tunnel into the ice and The Mighty Hercules is just mightier enough that he smashes into a large open cavern/room first! Black Panther follows at some distance, mostly trying to stay clear of flying ice chunks. Emerging from the tunnel, they see a large ice/stone room with a throne-like seat. A man sits upon the throne:

He has long, shaggy hair, an equally unkempt beard, a yellow costume, and a blue cape. When he shifts in the chair, they see an S upon his chest. They have no idea who this is. Warily, they approach.

"I do not know who you are or why you have disturbed my solitude but go now and you may leave in peace. I wish to remain alone, not to fight, but I will fight if I must."

• Hercules is confused - he doesn't really understand brooding
• Black Panther is interested but wants to know who this guy is before getting too involved
• Colossus is concerned and breaks out the armchair psychology

Colossus only gets so far before the multiple mentions of the "terrible things I've done" starts to get in the way of further conversation. Befuddled, Peter pauses ...

...and Hercules takes over! Falling back on what he knows best Herc touts the virtues of wine and song and comradeship and beating badguys and good times and drink and winning in general. Faced with this unstoppable torrent of optimism, the stranger's "... almost godlike assurance that he’s guilty" is overwhelmed by Hercules Godlike Positivity!

He stands, brushed the hair out of his face, walks over to Herc, smiles, and puts a hand on his shoulder: "Perhaps you are right old friend. Perhaps I have forgotten how good life can truly be. Perhaps it is time I returned to the world. Thank you." With that, he flies straight up and out of the room into the sunlit sky.

Hercules is extremely pleased with himself. Panther still wants to know who that was. Colossus wants to know what he meant by "old friend". Still pondering, they head for the large skull-shaped mountain in the distance, certain that their goal lies there.

At the foot of the mountain they find a village - a primitive village. As the heroes approach, a group of inhabitants gather. Many have obvious mutations. A four-armed giant of a man moves to the fore and points back the way the party came - "go".

Hercules asks for the ancient custom of hospitality. "Go".

Herc asks again. "Go".

Sensing trouble, Panther fades into the nearby foliage.

Annoyed, Hercules announces/lectures that it is customary for villagers to welcome travelers with food and drink. "Go".

As the last straw breaks, Herc punches the village champion. The mob gasps! Panther moves out of the bushes and into the village, leaping to the top of a hut.

Wrong heroes, but you get the idea

Then Colossus punches Hercules and a huge brawl erupts!

• The big mutate drops, flattened in one punch by the mighty Hercules
• The mob charges the mighty Hercules
• Hercules grabs his jaw - "so that's it, eh?" and slugs Colossus back
• A sniffing sound at the base of his hut causes Panther to leap into action against a particularly animal-like mutate
• One mutate with an oddly shaped head tries to mess with the King of Wakanda's mind

Hercules versus Colossus quickly becomes Herc versus Colossus versus the mob as the two titans beat on each other without regard for the swarm of bodies around them. Colossus feels Hercules struck without provocation while Herc feels that the villager was rude and insulting and so the punch was completely justified. over the next few minutes they agree to disagree and to handle the mob together and they quickly bash the primitive brutes into submission.

Panther's leap from the rooftops dispatches his wolflike opponent in one move. Feeling himself under mental attack he picks out the mental mutate and the "Peerless Strategist" faces off with a "Super-Genius". It ends a minute later with Panther reversing a surprisingly strong attack and knocking out the mentalist.

As the heroes gather together Herc is hit by a psychic attack - it wasn't just the one mentalist! Seeing a woman peering from the door of a hut Herc throws a rock at her, cursing her interference! Panther joins in and throws a rock and insults her as well. Somewhat reluctantly, Colossus does the same thing and the woman runs out of the village, crying out in fear and shame.

The heroes pause to catch their breath.

Then Hercules punches Colossus, and the heroic contest resumes. Panther watches silently, arms folded, tapping his foot. Herc eventually wins using some Greco-Roman wrestling tricks Peter had never seen before. It ends with a handshake, much backslapping, and promises of drinks together.

The skull mountain awaits ...

 

40K Friday (Tuesday edition): Year of the Eldar

A year ago I was adding Eldar units and agonizing over how to paint them up. That never really went away as anytime I started looking at my options I vacillated on having a small Iyanden ally force alongside a scheme of my own devising or combining the whole thing into one. This (among other things) kept me from getting much done with it last year and then the new codex came out and confused things even more, so I worked on Chaos Marines instead.

By December I was looking at the Eldar again, re-reading the new codex, researching details online and it finally hit me: It was really a bad idea to have two Eldar forces of my own plus Apprentice Blaster's Eldar army all taking shape in the same house. Blaster decided to go Saim-Hann when he started his army a couple of years ago so he was going to need more jetbikes. I decided to go with Iyanden since I already had some painted units for it and I like the wraith part of the army a lot anyway. Going with known craftworlds gives us the option of picking up the occasional painted unit which is a handy thing when you own more than one army.

Army scheme settled, I went through my units, handed over several of them to Blaster to fill out his force, and decided to give him a boost by painting up one of the jetbike units.

Bikes almost done, riders in progress

He was pretty happy when he got a hold of them and started painting up a second squad in almost the same scheme.  We got a lot of painting done in the last two weeks and I think this helped jumpstart it for both of us.

Once he took over I focused on what would become the core of my (finally!) settled army: A wraith host formation! That's a Spiritseer, a wraithlord, a wraithknight, and 3 units of wraithguard/wraithblades. I already had all the units - I just needed to build and paint them.

Wraith Heads Wraith Heads ...

I spent most of my time on the wraithguard as I had 15 of them and they were going to take the most time and effort. I also finished up the wraithlord as he had been partially built and painted some time ago. The spiritseer is "started" and the wraithknight is partially built but not painted as of this posting.

Build-wise I went with one unit of axes & shields, one with D-cannons, and one with D-scythes. I can see uses for each and I wanted to give myself all of the options instead of doubling up on one choice.  The wraithlord has dual scatter lasers as I am not running jetbikes and I haven't built my war walkers yet.

The current plan for the rest of the army is an aspect host featuring 3 units of dark reapers, a CAD with Farseers, rangers, and dire avengers, and two units of swooping hawks in there somewhere too. A falcon carrying fire dragons is an (already painted) option. I also plan to add in 3 Vypers and the aforementioned war walkers. Dark Eldar allies with an Archon leading a raider-borne squad of warriors are likely to make regular appearances too.

The basic theory is that the d-scythes deep strike via allied Dark Eldar Archon with webway portal, the D-cannons travel in a wave serpent and the axes march up the field with the wraithlord. The wraithknight takes the center of the field and destroys whatever needs destroying first. The reapers and rangers form a sort of gunline aided by the farseers while the swoops pounce on vehicles/flyers. Vypers/walkers provide mobile, if fragile, fire support.

The army does lack hand to hand units so I plan to build the wraithknight with sword and shield. It's mobile, durable, effective, and it looks great!

I would also like some stronger anti-air but between the Reapers, the Swooping Hawks, and a multitude of scatter lasers I am hoping that I have enough for now.

Almost done!

So that's the new approach. Once the wraith units are done the Reapers and the Swooping Hawks are next on the painting table. I expect the whole force will take a little while but I don't think it should take the whole year. I'm aiming for a month or two and then we will see what's left. Down the road I will probably add enough guardians to build that formation as well but it's not a high priority for now.

The last thing I needed to really bring it together was a theme - well, a theme beyond "lots of wraith units". Then I started thinking that we have a technologically advanced race whose homeworlds were destroyed in a catastrophe fleeing in an enormous spaceship and gritting their teeth at every casualty but refusing to surrender to the enemy or give up to the cruel fate of the universe... I believe Farseer Adama will be making an appearance on the tabletop.

You can hear the theme music now can't you?

 So the plan is to focus on these guys exclusively for now, both painting them (to get them done) and playing them (to get good at it). That will likely mean some Eldar-on-Eldar conflicts as Blaster is all over his force too. Red's Necrons should give us a change of pace now and then and a few months down the road I am sure I will be ready to throw one of my marine forces out on the table too. For now though, it's all about the Eldar.

Looking Forward to 2016

A little late but better now than never ...

Gaming-wise in general, my take on 2016 is "try to keep what I have going, improve it, and work in something new when I can."

When it comes to RPG's the main game is Pathfinder and I expect that to continue. We can do a lot better than the number of times we met in 2015 and that's the main goal. I have a good group, we have a pair of good campaigns - let's play them more!

Beyond that I would still like to do more Savage Worlds and lord knows I have enough stuff for it. Everyone loves it when we play it, but it never seems to gather quite enough momentum to take hold as a "main game". I'd say Deadlands is at the top of the list, with Slipstream as a possible dark horse candidate and various homebrew adaptations of things potentially in the mix as well. I love Necessary Evil but I'd like to spend more time at the "normal" level of Savage Worlds before going to Epic again with superpowered heroes or villains.

Superheroes will be in the mix somewhere, whether we continue with Marvel Heroic or continue with Mutants and Masterminds. Both are a lot of fun with even a small group of players and I've come up with campaign material that can be played out in short chapters that fit into a night's typical playing time for us. They make for good fill-in games when some of us have time but the whole Pathfinder party is not available.

Goal for the year: Run something in FATE, at least one session. I have some nifty books, some cool dice, and I like a lot of the concepts with the system.

Ever-optimistic hope for the year: At least two players say "Can we play some Star Wars/Star Trek" - there are usually one or two who might be up for it but not often at the same time. Given that word of a new Star Wars movie this last year and next this year and a new Trek movie this year completely failed to generate interest in an RPG or miniatures or boardgames I expect this will take a while. Regardless, I have systems. I have ideas. One of these days I will run a sustained campaign of one or even both but I suspect it will have to be a sudden development and not something planned months in advance. Or I will have to go online and play with people I do not actually know. Fingers crossed!

Miniatures-wise I expect this to be the year of the Eldar as Apprentice Red rediscovered his Necrons causing Blaster and I got serious about building and painting and playing our Eldar armies in December. More on that in another post. I expect 40K to dominate our miniatures time and I am fine with that - I like the current edition and we will be playing it for quite a while.

Beyond that I'd like to find time and money for Bolt Action, and I will probably dust off Epic at some point to work in another round of city-scale mayhem. As much as I like X-Wing and Attack Wing I'm not going to put much into them until the Apprentices show more interest.

Optional Victory Condition: Dropship Commander is close enough to Epic though that I might finally take the plunge sometime this year.

Boardgames and card games come and go with us - if it catches fire we play it a bunch for a month or two then it drops off for a while. The most fun is when the whole family gets interested but that's fairly rare. I don't have any big plans here but hopefully we will play some more of what we already have. A rule I've stumbled into the last few years in this area is to stop buying expansions for games we don't play - either sit tight or at most go buy a new game and see if it takes off instead.

Future Stuff

• Still no third-party license for D&D 5th edition ... maybe this year?
• Still no Freedom City for M&M 3rd Edition ... surely this year?
• My interest in the upcoming Pathfinder Adventure paths is dwindling. I'll probably stay with it through the "evil" campaign just out of curiosity but it's going to have to have more than just that to really interest me. The one after that is the Cthulu AP and I'm probably out at that point until something I like shows up in the coming attractions file. 
• Rifts for Savage Worlds is still probably at the top of my radar. Hopefully it's really good.
• There's a Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG supposed to be Kickstarting sometime in 2016 -  I'm always interested in a Superhero RPG and there are some good people involved in this one so I'll be keeping a hopeful eye on it.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to All!

Wishing good games and good rolls to everyone for 2016!

Looking back on 2015

Looking over at the side there I had about half as many blog entries in 2015 as I did in 2011-12-13-14. It was a busy year for other things so the blog became a bit less important than it had been. I'm not going anywhere and hopefully it will be a little more active in 2016.

RPG Stuff

• I ran 9 sessions of Wrath of the Righteous and finally - finally! - finished book 2! Book 3 kicks off in a few weeks and I am hopeful that we can plow through book 3 (remember, there are six in a Pathfinder adventure path) before the end of 2016. I say finally but the campaign has been a lot of fun and everyone is still enjoying it. Red even got to make a return appearance for a session or two. Book 3 kicks off in a few weeks.
• My friend Steve ran 8 sessions of Kingmaker and I was there for 7 of them. He had some interruptions too. It hasn't been a peak year for the gaming stuff for any of us but when we do get together we are having a blast. Hopefully 2016 is a little less challenging when it comes to schedules. 
• Savage Worlds is probably still in the #2 spot for games I run here, after Pathfinder. I ran a short-lived City of Heroes/Necessary Evil campaign. Stuff-wise I added the third Deadlands campaign book (via the Kickstarter), got the hard copies of Hell on Earth from the Kickstarter campaign, and added the first two big Deadlands campaign books, Necropolis 2350 and Slipstream to the shelf.
• I got to run a session of Marvel Heroic again and will be running another one this weekend to close out the first arc of a campaign we started in 2013. I don't know that I could run it continuously for years but as a single session or "burst" campaign it's a lot of fun. I do wish it was still being produced but I have enough material and ideas that I can play with it for quite a while.
• I also got to run some Mutants and Masterminds with "Battle on the Bay Bridge" to potentially kick off an occasional side campaign.
• We had our first session of the FFG Star Wars and it was good. Not sure I want to invest in the whole line just yet but the boys liked it and I can see some potential in the system.
• Other stuff : 
• I added some supplements and dice for Fate though I didn't run it at all
• I didn't run it even once, but I did get the hardcopy of Spirit of '77. I need to prep the Apprentices with a viewing of Smokey and the Bandit and then I think we'll be good to go.
• I added books to my LUG Star Trek collection, Mekton.
• The main target for "acquisitions" was Pathfinder - running one and playing in another for the long term meant I felt like I needed to be more informed and aware of the whole system. I averaged more than a book a month for the year and now have all but a few of the hardbacks and all of the smaller books I consider relevant for the current campaigns. That's a good place to be. 

Miniatures and Boardgames

• We did get into more boardgames this year with King of Tokyo, Imperial Assault, and Relic all getting some time. I'm hoping to work in a few more before we all head back to school and work.
• We tried Age of Sigmar once. It's OK but no where near what Warhammer used to be as far as drawing me in for a fight. When it comes to our limited time I would rather play 40K.
• Warhammer 40,000 continues to be our main game. It had peaks and valleys through the year but here at the end we've played a couple of more games and had a lot of fun so Apprentices' Red and Blaster and I have spent some more time building and painting to get ready for the next round. 

Oh you'd like that wouldn't you?

Looking back at least year's "looking ahead":

RPG:

• We did play some superheroes but could not sustain them as a regular scheduled thing
• We did play some Savage Worlds
• All of the rest pretty much went out the window as just keeping our main games going proved to be a challenge. D&D 5th edition is just not really grabbing anyone in my group.

Miniatures: 

• 40K - yes!
• Bolt Action - No!
• I did look into the Robotech miniatures game, Star Wars Armada, and Dropzone Commander, but none of them really grabbed me enough to take the plunge.
• X-Wing and Attack Wing both fell off of the radar. The boys just were not as interested in either one, even with the new movie coming out. It's a shame as both are good games, fast to play, and not terribly expensive to get into. Ah well, neither appears to be going anywhere so maybe they will pop back up next year.

Hopes for the new year tomorrow!