40K Friday: 2016 and Closing Out the Year of the Eldar

Wanting to use your Stompa more sometimes means it shows up as "terrain" rather than as part of an army

We had a big finish here for the year for Warhammer 40,000. Apprentice Blaster and I wanted to try out some of our other armies so we decided to play a four game escalation series with 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 point battles. I wanted to get more practice with the Blood Angels and he wanted to dust off his Space Wolves who have spent most of this year sitting on the shelf watching the Eldar steal the spotlight. So in the last ten days or so I've gotten in 4 games of 40K which is far better than we usually manage. I'll have a more detailed write up on these later but it was good to get in a groove as a lot (though not all) of the head-scratching rules lookup melts away and the thing is just fun. Highlight: Mephiston managed to kill 3 dreadnaughts single handed in two games so there were some epic moments. DO NOT attack him with dreads when his lightsaber is activated!

In 40K this is one of the good guys ...

Blaster and Red also got in a bonus game  which was the traditional "Christmas Battle" where they try out whatever new units they got for Christmas. For the last few years I go find a nicely painted unit for one of their armies and make that a present for them so it a) doesn't add to the painting backlog and b) they can use it right away. Blaster's Eldar (and his new Scorpions) beat Red's Necrons (and his new pair of Annihilation Barges) but they had a good time.

Back to the "Year of the Eldar" - it's been a lot of fun. Focusing on one army has really made a difference. I have still managed to add units and get some painting done on my Chaos Marines (particularly the Iron Warriors) and Blood Angels but the emphasis was on Eldar and most of my efforts went there. I've only used the Wraithknight twice but even in a traditional CAD force a wraith-heavy army painted up in Iyanden colors just looks right.

• Iyanden Eldar: I am still finishing up the Wraithnknight and the Spiritseer for the wraith host I started a year ago but I should finish them tomorrow. Hey, that's still technically finishing them in 2016! I'm finishing up a full unit of Vaul's Wrath big guns (D-cannons when you can't field the WK) which will probably be done today and I'm finally finishing the first of the Dark Reaper squads I've been wanting to use for so long. With  some luck I may finish all 3 squads tomorrow too. With what I have already finished that's a pretty serious force and it will all be painted!
• Dark Eldar: They had a really good year. I called them out in 2015 as a new allied experiment and I have enjoyed them every time I've played them. I added a second raider, a squad of scourges, and based up about 40 more warriors. The archon, two squads, the scourges, and one of the raiders are even base coated now! Regardless of what I decree as the main army for 2017 these guys are on the short list for finishing up to an "allied force org" level.  
• Chaos Death Guard: I didn't really add anything here but I did sort out what I have and figure out what I want the force to be. It's a bunch of ground-pounding plague marines + cultists + possessed + demon princes backed by missile launcher havocs and a defiler. That's pretty much what it's been but I'm changing out the fast attack section from a squad of spawn+ bikes to 3 maxed out spawn squads. More on the thinking here later.
• Chaos Iron Warriors: Core is Chaos Lord and Warpsmith leading 3 squads of marines in rhinos backed by autocannon havocs and a tri-las predator with air cover from a heldrake. The bikers from the Nurgle crew above are moving over to this force which gives them another speed unit.  I did some work on them as far as bases and I also built and painted the triple-helbrute deep strike formation.  I managed to play these guys a few times this year and I like the way they're shaping up. Chaos could still use a new book but I don;t feel like I have zero chance when I line this force up.
• Dark Angels: I didn't add a ton to these guys this year but I did pull all of them out onto a table in the last week along with the Blood Angels and reshuffle some units between the two. I still have a pretty good idea of what I want to do with these guys - they are my mechanized, shooting marines. The Lion's Blade company is the goal here. I just need to buckle down and get them to "playable", which they are not right now.   
• Blood Angels: Ah, I've liked these guys since 2nd Edition and I've been slowly collecting a force for them over the last 3 years or so. Now I am finally playing them and that puts them in contention for being next year's "Army of the Year" but I haven't completely decided. Considering I have most of the pieces for them and the Dark Angels (and the Crimson Fists too) I may make next year the "Year of Marines" and try and get all of my marine forces whipped into shape. As far as BA's specifically after playing them recently they are my "fast close-in" marines. I have only used them on foot, with jump packs, on bikes, and in drop-pods through these games and I think that's the direction I'm going to stay rather than going heavy on rhino's and razorbacks and tanks. 

The Orks, Demons, Crimson Fist marines went thru 2016 with no real changes. I played Orks once and I might have allied in some demons with one of my CSM forces but that's the only action any of these saw. 

I did add the Khorne Demonkin book a few days ago so I may look at building out a force for that too - for now based entirely on what I have on hand. I'm not interested right now in building that up too much but I do have some berserkers, bloodletters, and other Khorne units sitting around. Why not give the Bloodthirster an army of his own?

So today and tomorrow are finishing up the Eldar for now and seeing what I can do to finish up some Dark Eldar too. I may do the Iron Warrior bikers on Sunday as they should be fairly quick to paint and don't take a ton of detailing to look good. Then it's deciding on the big push for 2017. 

Old Video: A Night's Work (Shadowrun promo, 1990)

Somehow I've never seen this before. Not that it's good. Now my year is complete.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Been busy for the last week with time off and family and holidays but I will be back online next week to wrap up the year!

40K Friday: Ponies

There was a Hello Kitty necron army a few years back but this is the most unusual one I've heard of recently. Not sure the world needed it but here's a link to an article with more pics and details.

Original Ebay Auction is here.

I'd love to see something like this at Adepticon or the Bay Area Open. We need more crazy in this hobby.

M&M: The Big Game

So I started what I hope will be the "ultimate game" the day after Thanksgiving. I ended up with 5 players - two of my regulars, two of my Apprentices, and a friend of Apprentice Red's. We ran for about 8 hours which is a good long session for us. It was not quite as productive as I had hoped so we came nowhere close to finishing the adventure but it was a good start. People ran late, people had to finish making characters, we had to make some introductions of those characters, and we had to have a quick run-through of the rules but I didn't mind - those are all part of kicking off a new campaign.

So what did we play? Time of Crisis! Originally written for 1E M&M, updated for 2E in the GM screen for that edition, and updated to 3E by ... me. There are almost zero published adventures for superhero games that I think are worth running (except for ICONS!) but ToC is one of them. It's very much an "event" type adventure and I have wanted to run it for a group that would appreciate it for years. Being somewhat heavily structured, it's good for a new group too as they can focus on accomplishing a series of tasks to SAVE THE UNIVERSE under circumstances that mean even heroes who might not get along normally have a reason to work together.

I'm not going to get into all of the details as we only got through part of the adventure. The short version is that after Omega finally manages to shatter the cosmos a random group of heroes is rescued by a powerful entity and sent on a series of "missions" to undo the damage and save reality. Each of these takes place on an alternate universe and the first one is one where Nazi's won WW2. Right away the heroes are getting to punch Nazis and throw tanks at airplanes in a much-worse-off version of Freedom City. There is more fun to be had in subsequent parts but that's as far as we made it this time. The players were all pretty excited during the game and liked what they saw so things are looking really positive.

Our Heroes:

• US Patriot - super-strong, super-tough, flying symbol of patriotism
  (known hero in Freedom City)
• The Descendant - heir to an ancient legacy tied to artifacts of elemental power
  (new hero)
• Dark Justice - lurking, menacing, bringing justice to the streets - dark justice
  (known hero is Freedom City)
• Heavy Metal - builder and wearer of a hi-tech armored battlesuit to defend the defenseless and make a difference in the world
  (new hero)
• Barry Allen, the fastest man alive, aka The Flash - yep, that guy. This whole flashpoint thing is way out of control
  (errr...)

(Red's friend really likes Flash, especially the show, and wanted to play him. With the DC Adventures books as a reference how could I say no? It's not like Barry isn't getting into this kind of thing all the time anyway. We down-powered him to PL10 and went with it.)

The only downer was that schedules were not compatible for December, smashing my hopes of wrapping it up this month. January 2nd we gather again to hopefully resolve the Crisis. It's a big gap but I'm going to try and work in an M&M game during the holiday break with a different set of heroes to keep it somewhat fresh for most of the players.

So, the game is started. For 2017 I have decided to run an ongoing M&M game monthly. That will be the Freedom City game taking off from this kickoff adventure. I have 12 adventure ideas sketched out and will run one of them each month for whoever can make it. Other sessions will use FC or work in Emerald City or Atomic City depending on who's playing and what makes sense. I'll talk about how its going and what is or isn't working here.

New Ideas for 2017: More Tower of Zenopus from The Tower of Zenopus

I named the blog after the adventure in the back of the Holmes Basic edition of D&D because that's where I started with RPG's. It was the first adventure I read and the first adventure I ran. It occurs to me that I haven't referred to it on the blog in years - about five years. As discussed in that post I am considering working up versions of that old dungeon for other games. I could work it up as the lair of a mystical supervillain easily enough for my M&M game. I could work it into Deadlands fairly easily as well. It's perfect as the old hideout of some dark side mystic in a Star Wars game. A Pathfinder conversion is trivial. Why haven't I done this before?

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Meme-tastic Monday

40K Friday on Sunday: Other Miniatures Options for 2017

Anthony posted a comment on Friday's post that mentioned getting Bolt Action mini's ready as well as 40K. Yeah, similar problems here. I tend to focus on 40K because that's what we play the most but we go beyond that when we can. For 2016 I even made some deliberate efforts in that direction:

• I was determined to get in some games of Bolt Action so I went back to work on the 1/72 plastics I had from a while back. I also took a turn and got interested in playing more Pacific battles so I started looking into 28mm Marines and Japanese options. Then I saw a second edition was on the way and put the whole thing on hold. 2017 might be the time to get serious about my WW2 interests again and make this a real option. I was focused on 20mm or 1/72 plastics because they are cheap and a ton of stuff is available but so much of our terrain is 28mm and sometimes looks out of place for them. not so much hills/rocks/trees but the buildings are a real problem.

• I did, finally, get the two-player starter set for Dropzone Commander. It is a lot like epic, I really like the rules and the design overall, but I got bogged down while building the armies and it sits in a half-finished state, unplayed thus far. I really need to fix that.

• Frostgrave: It's a cool game, love the rules, but we just haven't found the time. Anything that uses the D&D mini's we already have and plays fairly fast has a chance here though.

• Flames of War: Bought an older rulebook cheap, read those rules, remembered why I lost interest the first time. Plus it's even more out of scale at 15mm. everything I have is built for either 6mm or 28mm. I'm not likely to buy or build a 3rd set of terrain for one game. 

• Kings of War: We repurposed my old Warhammer High Elves and Orcs for this game, wokred up some temp bases to stick them on and played 3 or 4 games of it. It's a lot of fun and plays quick without getting bogged down in umpteen special rules for each unit/leader/magic item. I like it a lot. I'm considering whether to rebase the old Chaos Warriors for it and I'm eyeballing the leftover Lizardmen I have so clearly it's found a home.

• X-Wing! Hey at least you don't have to paint the damn ships! We play this intermittently and I suspect it will resurface during the holiday break. It tends to spring up in conversations like this: Well I could go buy a new tank or a codex for 40K and spend the next few days reading it or building and painting up that unit -or- I could buy 4-5 new X-Wing ships for that same amount and be playing with them as soon as we get home. It's an easy decision sometimes.

Anyway I will probably pick one or two of those to bump up to "real, playable game" status alongside occasional Star Wars space skirmishes. If we do anything serious we will put some pictures here, 

40K Friday: Thinking about 2017

For 2016 I decided to focus on a single army and set a goal to turn it into a painted, use-able force over the course of the year. I took the pile of Eldar parts I had sitting around, acquired some more as the year went on and I am pretty happy with the outcome. It wasn't a 100% pure effort as I took some short side treks with the Iron Warriors and the Blood Angels but it all worked out really well.

(That's why the header for the blog is what it is - it was a theme!)

Now of course I have to decide what to tackle next year. The Eldar are handled. Leading candidates right now are:

• Dark Eldar - take them from allies to full army. I think I have finally figured out a paint scheme I can live with for them.
• Dark Angels - finish a completely modern space marine army. I already have the army, most of it is built, and most of it is base coated. i just need to focus in to finish it and play it.
• Blood Angels - another partly-built army with lots of almost-ready parts. They're not as big in the current meta but I rarely let that drive my long-term decisions.
• Iron Warriors - They're actually pretty close to done anyway. The combination of simple but effective paint scheme and limiting expansion units to stuff that's already painted means I do not have a huge backlog here. There isn't a year's worth of work here unless I go nuts with expanding the army. They may stay a "side" army.
• CSM Nurgle - I started these guys what seems like a long time ago and I never quite finish them. 

With rumors of an 8th edition coming next year and that it will include significant changes to the rules I am not terribly concerned with game performance as much as getting an army sorted out, built, and painted. Playing it would be nice too.

Dark horse candidates:

• I have some uncommitted marines, basically the Black Reach force plus a few extras. Do I need yet another marine army? or is it time to bring the Howling Griffons into the new era with new additions?
• Orks? So much "almost finished" but they are so terrible under the current rules. This is the one army where the state of the game is holding me back. They are that bad, especially compared to where they were for so long.
• "The Year of Terrain" - maybe it's time to focus on building up what we play on and around rather than one particular army.

I'll probably ponder out loud in this space for the rest of December so more to come on it for sure. 

New Ideas for 2017: Changing up the Schedule

The Pathfinder game has really hit a wall this year. By holding fast to the idea that I must have all 3 players present to run I thought I was ensuring the best game. What I ensured instead was less game - a lot less. We're in the single digits for the year for sessions played.  It's not any one persons fault either as the schedule issues have been pretty evenly spread between us. That doesn't make it better though and it's embarrassing to write it here.

I keep calling it the "main" game yet we've spent more sessions playing other games than we have my "main" game.  I've run more sessions of Star Wars  than I have my Pathfinder game in 2016. That's with two different systems but still ...

The once-a-month-game that I play in has had more sessions this year than my planned-as-twice-a-month-campaign! After talking through December schedules with my players, we won't get a chance to play again the rest of this year. We may play other stuff with a different mix of players but this particular trio is done until January.

So I have to change some things up. The plan is not working. I'm seriously thinking about cutting it back to once a month, setting a fixed weekend for it, starting earlier, and setting the player minimum to "two" instead of "three'. I spent 2016 being flexible, planning on the fly for the next game (or trying to anyway) and instead of making it easier to fit in I flexed myself right out of a campaign.

I'm looking at something like this right now:

• 1st weekend: The Freedom City campaign. Whoever is interested and can make it can play, no player continuity required. 
• 3rd weekend: Wrath of the Righteous

2nd and 4th weekends would be other non-gaming stuff, the once a month Kingmaker game I am playing in, and the occasional "other" game depending on which set of apprentices and friends is available and interested. Heck, I'm toying with the idea of a weeknight game again - I just have to ask each of the players if that's even an option instead of jumping on WoW or SWTOR. With one more kid graduating high school next spring it may not even be realistic but I'm still thinking about it.

If I can't run the Righteous with a two-player minimum  (They run 2 characters each. Two Mythic characters) then at some point I'm going to have to shelve it and see what else I can do. I'd hate to do it but it feels a little like I'm swimming upstream here. It's also a disappointing thought because I have other PF AP's I'd like to run. It's taken us 3 years to get to the halfway point of this one and that's with only 4 schedules to consider! 

I'm a little pessimistic now that this long term campaign format will work for us. I think a more flexible set of smaller adventures like I used to run may be the way forward - regardless of the game - instead of the sprawling epic that takes years to complete. If most of my group can really only have one regular main game - and even that is a debatable point right now - then I don't want to spend six years on one set of adventures.  I'd rather cover more ground as I have a lot of other awesome games that we could do in that time. I'd rather do six games for a year each in six years than six volumes of an AP with the same characters in that time. 

I know Savage Worlds, I know - you give a decent amount of crunch and still play way faster than Pathfinder for us.

I'd like to do something that plays a little faster too. We still spend a fair amount of time bogged down in mechanics because we don't play as often as we had planned so we don't get that sustained learning curve. It's also worse than a regular PF game as 1) They play two characters each which doubles the workload in mechanics-heavy situations like combat and 2) Mythic - it adds a whole new layer of special abilities that key off of or enable other special abilities and keeping track of those connections and abilities in play is a challenge, even  running PF Combat Manager on my side and  HeroLab for iPad on their side.  

So I don't have a great answer yet but I'm working on it. Feel free to make suggestions if you have any ideas.