Thursday, August 27, 2015

August 2015 Warmachine and Hordes Errata Thoughts

All of the Warmachine/Hordes (WM/H) world is abuzz with discussion about the most recent errata. And with good reason: this is easily the biggest set of actual rule changes Privateer Press (PP) has made in all of Mk. 2, and it touches some prominent models in significant ways.

If you haven't read the latest errata, the document (with latest version changes highlighted in red) can be found here: WM MKII Rules Errata August 2015.pdf

And if you're interested in the cliff's notes version, check out DarkLegacy's excellent summation post here: August 2015 Errata and You

Join me after the break for thoughts about the changes, how they may affect the game as a whole, and how they affect Khador specifically.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Thunderhorse - Vlad3 Thoughts and Theory

There is an affliction I have with Khador. Every three to six months, regardless of what I'm working on or playing, Vlad creeps onto the edges of my thoughts and will not leave.

The best way to exorcise this malady is to get into the dojo and come up with a list or two, then slap it down on the table.  The downside to this is that it throws off anything else I'm working with or on. The upside, however, is that I get to dojo and play Vlad which is always fun.

Vlad3 is the specific incarnation that has been bouncing around my head this time, so join me after the break for thoughts and theory about Khador's resident Horselord.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Infinity - Full Game Impressions


Infinity is a game that keeps bubbling back up to the surface for me. It is enjoying a pretty healthy resurgence across the wargaming world thanks to N3 (their latest revision of the rules) and an absolutely fantastic string of new models. A few people in our gaming group have been pulled back to the game (after initial impressions of it in the previous edition fell flat) and we're in the process of learning the game.

We recently had our first "full" game of Infinity - i.e. the first game outside of the "start up" scenarios in the Operation: Icestorm book using models of our own choosing and the full set of rules - and although it had some rough patches, I overall enjoyed it quite a bit (and a lot moreso than my experiences with N2 Infinity).

More in depth thoughts after the break!

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Summer Video Game Round Up

Its been awhile since I've talked about anything video game related. Since that is half of the blog title, I figured it was time to check in and share what I've been playing over the summer, and what I'm looking forward to as the year rolls along.

Join me after the break for sweet, sweet vidja game talk.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Painting Log - Obavnik Kommander Zerkova and Reaver Guard

The nicest part about having a small number of new releases in a cycle is that it is often very easy to stay caught up with everything. I recently finished Ruin <link>, and thanks to a friend picking me up Zerkova2 at Lock & Load, I've also managed to get her painted up (before her release date even). So now I'm caught up on Khador releases though...at least October, it looks like.

Join me after the break for pictures of how the models turned out, my thoughts on this wicked trio of models, and what's next for me on the painting table.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Syntherion - Notes from the Workbench

It struck me kind of funny, but the main faction I've been playing since the release of Warmachine: Reckoning has actually been the faction with zero releases from the book: Convergence of Cyriss. That is due more to timing than anything else; I've been playing a lot of Khador leading up to this point, and I was about due for a break. Plus it has been a very convenient way to get the two new Khador releases I have onto the painting table without disrupting the lists I want to play.

I've messed around with Convergence a little bit in the past, but it was a very clumsy foray into the faction. This time around I was coming into the games with a slightly better understanding of how the army was going to play, and with a (marginally) better sense of how to use the various models.

Join me after the break for a collection of my thoughts and experiences after another run of games with everyone's favorite baroque robots.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Mid-2015 Blogging Status Update

This is a housekeeping post. I have a few things I've had going on for awhile that I want to address here, and an announcement that I'm very happy to finally post up.

In no particular order:

What the hell happened to my Brawltimore event attendance?

The short answer is: life.

The longer answer is: as often happens with gaming, a lot of other things can and do come up that force a change of plans. The summer has been a whirl of happenings that have made it a better choice on those weekends to focus on other things.

That also coincided with a dip in my desire to play competitive Warmachine, so it ended up being a well timed break.

I'm starting to ramp back up into the mood for tournaments, so hopefully I'll be able to get into a monthly event cycle again sometime in the next couple of months. It may end up being tricky as the end of the year is stacked with travel and holidays, but I'll do my best to get back into the mix.

Speaking of games, where are the battle reports in general?

The short answer is: life.

Alright, not really.

The actual answer here is a combination of two factors:

1) My gaming group of friends has been somewhat scattered in what games each person has been in the mood to play recently. Combine that with a lot of variance as to who can make it for gaming each week, and some weeks there isn't an opportunity for Warmachine. Which, for the record, has been a really nice break when it's happened.

2) As a palette cleanser/"hey let me get some use out of these damn models", I've been playing more Convergence. I haven't been keeping notes/taking pictures for those games, for a few reasons: I wanted to focus more on playing the faction than doing write-ups (some of the things I've forgotten have been embarrassing enough without additional distractions), at least one of those games was against someone outside of my usual gaming group (which felt weird asking to take pictures and catalog our game), and in general the games I've played have felt so "getting to know the faction" that I didn't think they'd be terribly illuminating.

I do plan on collecting my general thoughts about my experiences with Convergence after these recent games into a post, which should be going up soon.

Have you been seeing other blogs? I've heard rumors.

Anyone keeping an eye on the comments sections of the posts here for the past few weeks may have noticed a post from one Larry Vela a few weeks ago. Turns out, he was trying to get in contact with me to offer me a slot posting Warmachine articles for Bell of Lost Souls. After debating it for a bit, I decided to accept his offer. Anything I can do to increase exposure/discussion for Warmachine, I'm happy to do, and BoLS gets a lot of traffic that may be interested in learning more about my favorite game system.

My entries are set to go up every Tuesday, so keep an eye out for those. Here's a link for all the posts I've had go up so far:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/author/moondog

Is that going to affect this blog?

It all depends on how busy things get week-to-week, but right now I'm hedging my bets and saying "probably a little".

With my efforts split, I want to make sure I can maintain putting together at minimum one post for each source a week. That is a possible downgrade on the twice-weekly schedule I have going now for S&D, but it is also the most sustainable. I've had moments in the past where keeping up with writing two posts a week has been difficult (usually when life gets busy) and I can only imagine that would be proportionately more difficult trying to keep up with three posts a week!

The upside is that BoLS uses a format that favors shorter posts, which helps to keep my "thought bible" length posts in check, and thus makes it that much more likely that I'll have time to work on posts for S&D. It also means that there are going to be plenty of topics that I'd rather tackle on here - anything long form, ultra-specific, high level, or not Warmachine related, to name a few possibilities.

My new policy going forward is going to be to have a post go up on BoLS on Tuesdays and a post go up here on Thursdays. If I've managed to write enough to have two S&D posts for a given week, I'll be posting Tuesday/Thursday here as usual.

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I wanted to share all that with you, dear readers, so you know whats been going on and what to expect in the near future. I'll still be posting regularly, just in different places, and possibly slightly less regularly here (though I'm going to try to keep two posts a week coming).

I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been reading this blog so far, and many thanks to everyone who has commented on articles in the past. I look forward to providing you guys more content on here and BoLS, and hearing your thoughts on everything!