Almost there....

We are less than a week away from getting to see the second edition of Warmachine, known as WARMACHINE Mk II, for the first time. Privateer Press has set up a website for people to download the new rules and to leave the company feedback on the new system of rules. The website is fieldtest.privateerpress.com. The PDF that will be found their will contain the basic rules and statistics for all of the models in the game. In one week we can all start playing with the new rules and begin to actually make informed opinions about the new edition. It’s a shame that we will have to wait for eight months before we get to see the Hordes rules and armies. This is especially true for me because I’ve really loved my Hordes armies lately.

A short Circle update

My Circle army is coming along well. I’ve finished painting Baldur, a Woldwyrd, a Woldwarden, an unit of Shifting Stones, and a Sentry Stone with a full compliment of Mannikins. I also have a painted up a unit of Bog Trogs. I am now working on a unit of Gatormen and another Sentry Stone with a full compliment of Mannikins. I plan on buying another Woldwyrd and Krueger in the near future. No pictures as of yet (I forgot my camera when we gamed tonight) but I hope to add some soon (I personally think the army is turning out great).

So far I’ve won both of the two 500 point games that I’ve played. My first game was against Nate. He was playing a Darius list that was running 3 heavy jacks. I assassinated his caster on the third turn by using Mannikins to make forest and then useing Baldur’s Forest Walker ability to smack down Darius. Tonight I played John and his new Legion Thagrosh list. I assassinated Thagrosh on turn two. This occurred more because John messed up than any great skill on my part. He left Thagrosh with no focus on him and I shot him with a Woldwyrd and the finished him with a spell cast from the Woldwarden (it helped that I rolled really well).

Last week of the Warmachine league

I played my last league game of this season today. It was a 750 point game in witch I used my Protectorate of Menoth (led by Severius) and Nate played a Cygnar force (led by Haley). To be honest, it was a pretty one sided game. I killed most of Nate’s trenchers with my Idrian Skirmishers on the first turn before the Trenchers could even activate. He only killed my 3 Idrians on his turn so I went into the second round with my forces largely intact. On the second turn I finished off the trenchers and half of his long gunners, while my sisters tied up a lancer for the rest of the game. Nate had a sound counter strategy but the dice gods abandoned him at this point and he never rolled above a six on his second turn (killing only two more idrians and one sister of the flame). On turn 3 I advanced even closer to the Cygnar line of battle taking out the Black 13th with my Zealots. Nate responded by knocking down Severius (who had wondered to close to a lancer) and charging him with Thorn. Nate would have had me but he had forgotten to put enough focus on Thorn (and he rolled like crap). I was then able to put Death Sentence on Haley and lighter her up with a unit of Deliverers, Game over. This win put me in first place for two of the categories. I’ll update on Thursday who wins what medals.

Privateer Press Plastic models finally revealed

We finally have pictures of Privateer Press’ first plastic models, the Exemplar Bastions. This new plastic box set comes with a full unit of 5 Bastions (normally these medium base Warmachine units come with only 3 modules and cost more money). It was accidently leaked a few months ago that the company was going to begin producing some of their units in plastic in an attempt to keep down their production cost. This development has caused a large amount of controversy within the Privateer Press fan base and the official forums have been filled with declarations of keep PP all metal. The controversy has mainly stemmed from the facts that the company has always mooched the use of plastic miniatures and presented its products as “full-metal fantasy”. I personally have mixed feelings. I do like the “feeling” of playing with metal models (I still remember frowning the first time when I picked up a plastic Space Marine Dreadnought from GW) but I prefer to build plastic models over metal. Plastic is just so much easier to work with. I have mixed feelings on the cost of this new set. On one hand the units is five dollars cheaper than a unit of five plastic GW Terminators and is about thirty bucks cheaper than what a full unit of five would have cost if made of metal. On the other hand I was expecting the box set to be a bit cheaper. I’m not saying that the box set is overpriced; I was just thinking it would have been slightly cheaper (like $40 or under). I don’t know why because the unit is still cheaper than the industry standard (let’s face it, like it or not, Games Workshop sets the miniature game industry standard). How do these new plastic models look? Take a better look for yourself. The front page of the Privateer Press websight has a 360 view of the models.

Last week's game

I only got to play one game last week in the local Warmachine league. It was a Cygnar versus Cygnar shootout that I lost. Well, perhaps I should say that officially I lost the game (more on that latter). I ran a good ol’ Victoria Haley with a unit of Trenchers, several lancers, an Ironclad, and a few other odds and ends. My opponent, Gilbert, played a Markus 'Siege' list with some Longgunners, a Lancer, several Hunters, and a few solos. It was an extremely weird game for two Cygnar forces. This was mainly because of the fact that the scenario discouraged shooting because it gave every model stealth for the first two turns. I made my largest mistake of the game by letting Gilbert go first, which meant that all of his forces got to shoot first on turn three when it became “daylight”. My forces we greatly damaged so I made an assignation run on Siege. I was almost there and then he used his feat. Unfortunately, I misunderstood how it worked so Haley was easily killed. Latter I discovered that Haley should not have been killed and that I likely I would have one the game (Siege was down to 5 hit points standing next to a heavy Warmachine…and if that did not get him I think Haley would have). So once more I loose a game that I should not have.

Warmachine is much more complicated than most of the miniature games that I have played before (especially GW games). All I can say is to play this game well you need to know the rules well, know your army very well, and read your opponents cards about three times or so. It’s not that people cheat in this game it’s just that it is so easy to forget things. I find something that I have either forgotten to do or played wrong in almost every game. Not to say that I do not like Warmachine, I do (its complexity does lead to a great amount of strategic options). I do miss the army scale of GW games and sometimes I miss the simplicity of those games (Remember simplicity does not mean dumb). Oh well. I’ll just have to practice more. I have planed on a 1,200 point game this week and hopefully I’ll remember my camera so I’ll have some pics to post.

Caspia-Sul Tour Week One Standings

Each Call to Arms tour has four award medals. While the Warlord medal always goes to the player with the most league points at the end of the league, the other three medals (Eliminator, Relentless, and Strategist) have different victory conditions for each Call to Arms tour. Here is a list of the conditions and the leader board of the Decks & Duels league after week one.

Eliminator :
The Player who reaps the most VP's from Units will win the Eliminator medal (This includes Attrition - 1 VP for a unit that is below half its starting number at the end of the game)
1)John (8pts)
2)Gilbert (4pts)
3)Chris (2pts)

Relentless:
The Relentless medal will go to the player with the Longest winning streak with different factions (can't play same faction twice in a row).
1)Gilbert (2 game winning streak)

Strategist :
The Strategist goes to the player who wins the most games using the same faction.
1)Chris (2 wins with Cryx)

Warlord :
The Warlord medal goes to the player with the most league points at the end of the league.
1)Wil (12)
1)John (12)
3)Chris (11)

Call to Arms Thursday, week one

Proof that I need to paint more

First game of the new Warmachine season (yes we are a week behind) and I have officially experienced the most embarrassing defeat ever. The night started off innocent enough, a simple 500 point game, my Kreoss led Protectorate of Menoth versus Chris’ Mortenebra led Cryx. The first two turns were all about maneuvering for position (in fact the only casualty occurred when my Exemplars Errant squad shot up a pistol-wraith). Then on turn three both High Paladin Vilmon and the Avatar of Menoth charged and beat down the Deathjack. In response Chris came up with a great plan that would have won him the game if it had succeeded. Unfortunately for him it failed but he did end up killing off my Exemplars. On turn four I would finish of the Deathjack and destroyed his Seether, it was looking bad for Chris. Soon I had killed everything but Mortenebra. I decided to go for the major victory condition so I basically passed up a chance to kill Mortenebra. Chris made me pay! I was not aware that she had pathfinder so imagine my surprise as she charged Kreoss through rough terrain and killed him. What an embarrassing sight…Mortenebra alone on the table and completely surrounded by Protectorate of Menoth pieces. My wife puke it best when she said, “Honey, if you can go for the kill, do it!”

How do you defeat Epic Vlad? With a sledgehammer ... A real one!

The other game of the night was John’s Cryx against Josh’s Khador. They played a 750 point game that turned into an absolute slugfest. In nothing else their game looked much cooler than ours when you compared their fully painted armies to our table full of naked metal and primer colored models (What’s that? The Avatar…without arms). To be honest, I did not pay to much attention to this game but I do know that John won on victory points and that the warcasters were Epic Vlad and Mortenebra. It is looking like we may have to only play 500 point games on Thursday night due to time restraints (especially when you consider how slow I play). I was going to start updating the league standings tonight but I think I’ll wait until next week when everyone has had a chance to get some more games in.

The Killing fields

2008 A Call to Arms: Broken Coast Raids, Week Four

Apparently Privateer Press, the makers of Hordes and Warmachine, creates four league seasons a year that any local store or club can sponsor. In these eight week leagues, Privateer Press releases new scenarios, maps, and rules that change on a weekly bases, while players compete for one of four awards over the coarse of the season. This has been my first Privateer Press league and I’ve been very impressed. We are in week 4 (One week behind most leagues) and all ten participants are still in the hunt for at least one of the four medals.
My loosing streak continues. After winning my first four games in the local Warmachine league, I have gone on what seems like a very long loosing streak. My Protectorate army is starting to fall so far behind in league points that I’m now trying to win the “Eliminator” award (goes to the player who scores the most points for killing light jacks and light war-beast). Tonight, my butt kicking came courtesy of the local Trollbloods player, but at least I got a light war-beast kill.
One of the leagues new players, Chris, won his first game tonight. His Cryx army won a major victory against Ricky’s Khador force. Over all, it was a bad night for Vlad led Khador forces as our other Khador player also lost by a major victory. Maybe next week I should play a Khador player, even though they don’t have light jacks.