This was a part of Stevie T's 'Becoming Legendary' campaign, and it got me into an interesting battle with a young Dwarf player this evening. So that the rest of the blog makes sense, it's 150 points per side, with no characters (named or otherwise) and a small amount of might, will and fate to dish out to various members of the warband. We play 10-turn games with objectives that are kept hidden from our opponents, or at least that's the theory, and the winner gains experience points and hopefully some skills later on. The latter I'm not too sure about, but here's how the game went:
I set up the 4'x4' board giving a couple of buildings and a fence to one corner, and hills/trees/another couple of buildings dotted in various places around the board. It took me somewhat by surprise, therefore, when my opponent picked the table edge a long way from said corner, giving me plenty of opportunity to sieze defensive positions. A good thing too, since my secret mission was Band of Brothers, which meant that I had to finish the game with at least half the number of models that I started with. I'd literally lined up a spearwall across the walls of the small village I was defending, and had my banners well in range. With no idea of what my opponent's mission might be, we began...
I rolled badly for priority in the first couple of turns and my opponent got to move first on several occasions, however I was in a good position as Dwarves aren't all that fast and he'd have to spend much of the game running across the battlefield in order to meet me. It was therefore an archery contest for the first 5 turns, with my archers doing appalingly and my opponent's rather more accurate dwarves manageing to shoot a couple of them down. I was very disappointed when one of the people he shot down included one of my Serpent Riders, who I'd deployed there as an ambush just in case he was thinking of taking the fight to me. This left one Serpent Rider out on his own, who proceeded to charge a pack of 4 Dwarves. He killed one, and was made short work of by the remaining three, unsurprising really since they consisted of a Vault Warden team.
Elsewhere, the main body of the Dwarves were still a long way from my army 8 turns in, and I decided to bring my Serpent Guard out to meet them. I recognise that this wasn't a sound tactic - my opponent's objective clearly involved killing at least some of my models so I was far better off playing a defensive game - but do you know what? If I'm playing a war game, I want to see a fight! So my Serpent guard pounced on his Khazad Guard, and one of them died almost straight away. However, Harad aren't reknowned for their small-but-elite forces, and there are plenty more where he came from. I moved my banner in to range and tried to take out my opponent's banner and some of his archers; he actually ended up killing more than me and the banner bearer survived. In desperation, he also decided to attack the wall I was defending, a brave move but unfortunately it didn't come off.
8 of my men had to survive, and 10 of them did, so I'd achieved my objective. It transpired that my opponent's objective was to kill 3 of my men with the same nominated model, and he actually got surprisingly close; he chose a dwarf with a bow and he took one of my warriors out at long range, and killed a Serpent Guard in close combat. He actually survived the battle, but with only 2 men killed, it was too little too late for him.
Next time I won't be so quick to try and ambush my opponent's army without support; flinging those two Serpent Riders out into the open was a basic mistake and very costly. I'd have been better off waiting until the fighting started and gone for the banner bearer, this might have given me the edge that I needed in the last few turns of the game.
Not hard to link the story to where it left off last time I played a Rings game, which was when I won a village off Gondor. A small detatchment of Haradrim Warriors had been left behind to keep the village secure, and were joined by an elite company of Serpent Guard. It's been a couple of months since then so the scenario fits as well; having been in one another's company for a long time they will naturally have an affinity with each other and want to keep as many of their friends alive as possible. This wasn't apparently shared by the Serpent Guard, who, when a company of Dwarves arrived to try to regain the town and prove the might of one of their number, decided to jump out from the relative safety of the other side of the wall to show the other guys how it's done. The fact that most of them died successfully proved the Warrior's point. Having defended their village successfully from the Dwarves, it will be interesting to see where their adventures lead them to next time...
Monday, 28 March 2011
27/3/11: Space Hulk + New Gretchin
Hello! With barely a week gone by since my last ignomious draw at Space Hulk, the time seemed ripe for another go at Suicide Mission. Little did I realise how badly it would all go for me when it was my turn to play as the Space Marines...
As you may remember from the last blog, I had the idea of 'running it up the middle,' as it were, instead of giving the Genestealers time to build up an attack. So I organised the Terminators accordingly and charged up to the bottleneck, guns-a-blazing (to get rid of the doors which would have cost another action point to open) and tried to get to the crossroads at the top of the map to turn towards the objective. I didn't get that far. In my haste to move the Terminators up there as quickly as possible, I'd made some very careless moves, and while I didn't leave myself wide open to an attack as I usually do, I did make Dave's job a lot easier by allowing his genestealers very quick access to my Terminators. Fair play to the guys who managed to beat off the 'Stealers in combat for maybe a turn, but they never had a chance, and neither did Brother Zael. It was all over by the third turn. In any other mission I guess I could be forgiven for that but you don't need 3 minutes to move 5 Terminators, however slow they are; I'd have made a much better job of it had I taken the time to think about where his Genestealers were going to be in the coming turn...
Dave's run as the Space Marines didn't deviate much from the usual, except that this time he decided to cement his hold on the bottom room completely and use the Lurker rule to block the entry point from the bottom. Fair play to Brother Denio, who we've re-named Clint, for making several accurate overwatch shots at an impossible distance, but as so often happens when Dave plays the Terminators it becomes a bloody stalemate until the nids can break through, and in an ill-advised attempt to flame some of them, Dave ended up flaming the whole room and killing Zael and the only other Terminator he had left.
So, another draw, and a new determination to get revenge the next time we play. One day Dave. One day...
In other news I finally finished painting some Gretchin last week, and here they are:
That was the best picture I got of them, I have an unfortunate habit of jerking my hand when I press the shutter on my camera so it almost always looks blurry but hey. Gone for a similar look to the Orks, which makes sense as they're in the same army, with using all the parts with things on their head that I can paint yellow. I think they came out quite well; not my best but hey, they're only Gretchin. So... which one have I converted, and what was the part that I used? Answers on a postcard please, or comment the blog. Actually, commenting would be better.
Up to Workshop in a bit so there may be another one of these blogs later, let's hope it's a win! I've been keeping track of my gaming wins/losses (except for Yu-Gi-Oh, which I'm so bad at I don't count it) and I've got a few more losses than wins so I need to turn that around. Space Hulk's not helping in that respect! It's adding to my ever-growing number of draws...
As you may remember from the last blog, I had the idea of 'running it up the middle,' as it were, instead of giving the Genestealers time to build up an attack. So I organised the Terminators accordingly and charged up to the bottleneck, guns-a-blazing (to get rid of the doors which would have cost another action point to open) and tried to get to the crossroads at the top of the map to turn towards the objective. I didn't get that far. In my haste to move the Terminators up there as quickly as possible, I'd made some very careless moves, and while I didn't leave myself wide open to an attack as I usually do, I did make Dave's job a lot easier by allowing his genestealers very quick access to my Terminators. Fair play to the guys who managed to beat off the 'Stealers in combat for maybe a turn, but they never had a chance, and neither did Brother Zael. It was all over by the third turn. In any other mission I guess I could be forgiven for that but you don't need 3 minutes to move 5 Terminators, however slow they are; I'd have made a much better job of it had I taken the time to think about where his Genestealers were going to be in the coming turn...
Dave's run as the Space Marines didn't deviate much from the usual, except that this time he decided to cement his hold on the bottom room completely and use the Lurker rule to block the entry point from the bottom. Fair play to Brother Denio, who we've re-named Clint, for making several accurate overwatch shots at an impossible distance, but as so often happens when Dave plays the Terminators it becomes a bloody stalemate until the nids can break through, and in an ill-advised attempt to flame some of them, Dave ended up flaming the whole room and killing Zael and the only other Terminator he had left.
So, another draw, and a new determination to get revenge the next time we play. One day Dave. One day...
In other news I finally finished painting some Gretchin last week, and here they are:
Up to Workshop in a bit so there may be another one of these blogs later, let's hope it's a win! I've been keeping track of my gaming wins/losses (except for Yu-Gi-Oh, which I'm so bad at I don't count it) and I've got a few more losses than wins so I need to turn that around. Space Hulk's not helping in that respect! It's adding to my ever-growing number of draws...
Friday, 18 March 2011
17/3/2011: Space Hulk
So it was with a fresh air of determination that Dave and I decided to plunge headlong into Suicide Misson, new strategies in mind, in the hope that one of us would be able to win it...
Dave went first, and his idea was to avoid the bottleneck entirely and concentrate on securing the room at the bottom of the map. I was unsure of this at first as he'd advanced 2 of his Space Marines into the corridor, and moved the rest forward in a slow methodical way. However when I pounced on the two Marines in the corridor he quickly turned back in to the room and decided to make a stand. It worked for a while; it's a long corridor and a lot of rounds of overwatch for a Tryanid to get through, but in the end it didn't come through for him. I've said it before but not for nothing; if games of Space Hulk come down to a war of attrition, in most cases the Space Marines haven't got a chance of winning, and in the end Dave's tactics only really helped him for as long as it took me to break through. It was several turns before I did, and I have a feeling it was only because Dave was plagued with Jams all through the game, but...
My game was more objective-focussed, and in the light of what went on in our previous match, I decided to avoid the "rear-guard" tactic and move all my Terminators up in unisen, turning around to fire if need be. This worked until I got the squad up to the first T-junction, at which point the problems began. By then, Dave had moved his Genestealers worryingly close, and I tried to turn left at the T-junction, which with a corner and a door was the route that afforded more cover. In hindsight that was probably my biggest mistake; what with Terminators being comeplete hulking lummoxes and having to use one of their action points to turn around, I choked my force into the bottleneck again. I put 2 of the Terminators on guard watching the rear of the Flamer - again, that only helped me for as long as it took Dave to break through, which in this case wasn't long. Sergeant Lorenzo made a good go of it, using his experience and parry rule to great effect in close combat, but even that guy can't hold out for ever. In the end, only Zael was left, by which time he was acting as the rear-guard by flaming the t-junction. The only way he was going to manage it was by close-combating the remaining Tyranids in his path while flaming the sections directly behind him, it didn't work, but can't fault him for trying.
Next time Dave, NEXT TIME!!! I shall probably try moving all the Space Marines up to the crossroads at the top of the map and turn them round there; they may fare better if they don't have to perform so many manourvres to reach their objective.. It will be a Tyranid-infested hell, but after all, I only need 2 of them to still be alive by the time they get there...
Dave went first, and his idea was to avoid the bottleneck entirely and concentrate on securing the room at the bottom of the map. I was unsure of this at first as he'd advanced 2 of his Space Marines into the corridor, and moved the rest forward in a slow methodical way. However when I pounced on the two Marines in the corridor he quickly turned back in to the room and decided to make a stand. It worked for a while; it's a long corridor and a lot of rounds of overwatch for a Tryanid to get through, but in the end it didn't come through for him. I've said it before but not for nothing; if games of Space Hulk come down to a war of attrition, in most cases the Space Marines haven't got a chance of winning, and in the end Dave's tactics only really helped him for as long as it took me to break through. It was several turns before I did, and I have a feeling it was only because Dave was plagued with Jams all through the game, but...
My game was more objective-focussed, and in the light of what went on in our previous match, I decided to avoid the "rear-guard" tactic and move all my Terminators up in unisen, turning around to fire if need be. This worked until I got the squad up to the first T-junction, at which point the problems began. By then, Dave had moved his Genestealers worryingly close, and I tried to turn left at the T-junction, which with a corner and a door was the route that afforded more cover. In hindsight that was probably my biggest mistake; what with Terminators being comeplete hulking lummoxes and having to use one of their action points to turn around, I choked my force into the bottleneck again. I put 2 of the Terminators on guard watching the rear of the Flamer - again, that only helped me for as long as it took Dave to break through, which in this case wasn't long. Sergeant Lorenzo made a good go of it, using his experience and parry rule to great effect in close combat, but even that guy can't hold out for ever. In the end, only Zael was left, by which time he was acting as the rear-guard by flaming the t-junction. The only way he was going to manage it was by close-combating the remaining Tyranids in his path while flaming the sections directly behind him, it didn't work, but can't fault him for trying.
Next time Dave, NEXT TIME!!! I shall probably try moving all the Space Marines up to the crossroads at the top of the map and turn them round there; they may fare better if they don't have to perform so many manourvres to reach their objective.. It will be a Tyranid-infested hell, but after all, I only need 2 of them to still be alive by the time they get there...
Monday, 14 March 2011
Yu Yu Hakusho: Spirit Detective
This is the first video game I've been able to finish for a while!
On an impluse I decided to buy this game for he Gameboy Advance, I'd never really heard anything about it before but it looked suitably anime/fantasy for my usual tastes, and appeared to have a good storyline to it as well. On playing it, however, I wasn't too impressed...
There's not a lot to it to be honest, all you're really doing is running around an isometric gaff punching things. This would be OK if the game made you feel it's part of something huge, but it really doesn't; the characters have quite extreme and obsessive personalities to the point where they're just not believable, and while the stages of the game do have a 'mission based' feel to them, there's not much to suggest it's linked to any overall huge plot beyond the first couple of levels where Yusuke dies and becomes the Spirit Detective. The game ended on a bit of a low, where you fight the final ridiculously-tough-but-disappointingly-normal-looking boss Toguro, and the game ends with the idea that there is more to do. I mean yes, keep them wanting more, but when there wasn't all that much there in the first place it's not really given me that incentive.
To be fair, there's some fun to be had from the fighting elements of the game. The actual fighting never really strays from the "let's find something and kill it" speil, but you can manipulate the game's tougher fights by being extremely careful on your approach so that only one enemy appears at a time. The best levels are probably the timed ones, where you have to pick up a certain amount of items to win the level, and therefore you need to pick your fights carefully. It's one thing to gain a lot of experience from winning fights, but it won't help you if you can't finish the level!
You get four characters to play with in the main bulk of the game, but to be honest I couldn't see the point. They each have a different special attack, and one of them is supposed to be slightly faster, but in reality there's not much difference. Yusuke has a ranged attack that none of the others have, making the other characters a bit redundant. Hiei, for example, has the ability to teleport short distances, but there's no real reason to use it. Kuwumara has a spirit sword, but that can only be used in close range, and as the enemies can't attack you while you're pounding them anyway, the only real reason to use it is if you're heavily outnumbered and re-he-hearly need something to die quickly. You do have to use them all though; at some point in the later stages of the game they each have to take on a boss alone, and they all need to be levelled up before they can stand a real chance. Thankfully, I've played some of the video RPGs before (by which I mean games that are NOT based on Dungeons and Dragons or anything like that, where it actually matters what experience you're doling out to what character) and picked up on this fact early; if not I'd probably have played most of the game using Yusuke, got stuck and have to play through the entire game again.
The game is quite short; I'm not sure what I think of that. On the one hand, the approach to fighting monsters in the game gets old, so I probably wouldn't have played it for much longer anyway. On the other hand, the short game doesn't really give it time to develop. Having looked in to it a little, I've now discovered that it's based on an old Manga comic of the early 1990s, and it appears to follow the plot faithfully, to the point that they literally couldn't have made the game any longer than they did without making a competely different game anyway. For fans of the series, it is at least a faithful reproduction - but I'd be interested to know how many people old enough to remember the manga have a GBA or a DS. All in all, not a very good game.
But do you know what, I've actually read manga comics, and there is usually a far more intricate development of the plot than this game suggests. It's something I'd be interested in checking out, if I had time. For now though, I bought Tournament Tactics as part of the same purchase, so you may be hearing about that in future...
On an impluse I decided to buy this game for he Gameboy Advance, I'd never really heard anything about it before but it looked suitably anime/fantasy for my usual tastes, and appeared to have a good storyline to it as well. On playing it, however, I wasn't too impressed...
There's not a lot to it to be honest, all you're really doing is running around an isometric gaff punching things. This would be OK if the game made you feel it's part of something huge, but it really doesn't; the characters have quite extreme and obsessive personalities to the point where they're just not believable, and while the stages of the game do have a 'mission based' feel to them, there's not much to suggest it's linked to any overall huge plot beyond the first couple of levels where Yusuke dies and becomes the Spirit Detective. The game ended on a bit of a low, where you fight the final ridiculously-tough-but-disappointingly-normal-looking boss Toguro, and the game ends with the idea that there is more to do. I mean yes, keep them wanting more, but when there wasn't all that much there in the first place it's not really given me that incentive.
To be fair, there's some fun to be had from the fighting elements of the game. The actual fighting never really strays from the "let's find something and kill it" speil, but you can manipulate the game's tougher fights by being extremely careful on your approach so that only one enemy appears at a time. The best levels are probably the timed ones, where you have to pick up a certain amount of items to win the level, and therefore you need to pick your fights carefully. It's one thing to gain a lot of experience from winning fights, but it won't help you if you can't finish the level!
You get four characters to play with in the main bulk of the game, but to be honest I couldn't see the point. They each have a different special attack, and one of them is supposed to be slightly faster, but in reality there's not much difference. Yusuke has a ranged attack that none of the others have, making the other characters a bit redundant. Hiei, for example, has the ability to teleport short distances, but there's no real reason to use it. Kuwumara has a spirit sword, but that can only be used in close range, and as the enemies can't attack you while you're pounding them anyway, the only real reason to use it is if you're heavily outnumbered and re-he-hearly need something to die quickly. You do have to use them all though; at some point in the later stages of the game they each have to take on a boss alone, and they all need to be levelled up before they can stand a real chance. Thankfully, I've played some of the video RPGs before (by which I mean games that are NOT based on Dungeons and Dragons or anything like that, where it actually matters what experience you're doling out to what character) and picked up on this fact early; if not I'd probably have played most of the game using Yusuke, got stuck and have to play through the entire game again.
The game is quite short; I'm not sure what I think of that. On the one hand, the approach to fighting monsters in the game gets old, so I probably wouldn't have played it for much longer anyway. On the other hand, the short game doesn't really give it time to develop. Having looked in to it a little, I've now discovered that it's based on an old Manga comic of the early 1990s, and it appears to follow the plot faithfully, to the point that they literally couldn't have made the game any longer than they did without making a competely different game anyway. For fans of the series, it is at least a faithful reproduction - but I'd be interested to know how many people old enough to remember the manga have a GBA or a DS. All in all, not a very good game.
But do you know what, I've actually read manga comics, and there is usually a far more intricate development of the plot than this game suggests. It's something I'd be interested in checking out, if I had time. For now though, I bought Tournament Tactics as part of the same purchase, so you may be hearing about that in future...
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
First Orks!
For the first time in the 12 years (almost to the day!) that I've been involved with Games Workshop, I've actually painted a squad of Orks up properly. Here's how they look:
Granted I could have managed without the flash, but for some reason the other two pictures that I took without the flash were more blurry than a Puddle of Mudd song.
So what drove me to do Orks? 2 things really - First, it's one of Dave's ideas to do an apocalypes army with his Orks, and while he'd have happily allied with my Chaos, I wanted to have a go at a new army so I got some Orks on the go. Second, I'm a little bit really obsessed with the Dynasty Warriors games, and wanted to do an army based on the Yellow Turbans...
So that explains the paint scheme. Yellow. Basically I want everything in my army to have something on their head that is yellow, and have the rest of the clothes yellow as well. To this end, I chose only the Orks that were either wearing something on their heads that I could paint yellow, or a topknot, the actual knot of which I would paint yellow. How I'm going to manage this with the Weirdboy who I want to lead them I don't know, but one thing at a time.
So how is this army going to represent the Yellow Turbans? Well, from the way they were portrayed in the Dynasty Warriors/Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, they had to be negatively portrayed (Bad guys,) there needed to be thousands of them but with some sort of sentient intelligence (Orks,) high levels of psychic ability (the army will be lead by Weirdboyz,) low level of technology (infantry-based with nothing more advanced than lootas, meks and possibly Stormboyz) and a general low level of talent spread across the army (none of the units of Orks will be lead by Nobz.)
All in all I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out, not least because Stevie T's suggestion of Denheb Stone around the outside of the base seems to have worked really well.
Gretchin coming up, watch this space!
So what drove me to do Orks? 2 things really - First, it's one of Dave's ideas to do an apocalypes army with his Orks, and while he'd have happily allied with my Chaos, I wanted to have a go at a new army so I got some Orks on the go. Second, I'm a little bit really obsessed with the Dynasty Warriors games, and wanted to do an army based on the Yellow Turbans...
So that explains the paint scheme. Yellow. Basically I want everything in my army to have something on their head that is yellow, and have the rest of the clothes yellow as well. To this end, I chose only the Orks that were either wearing something on their heads that I could paint yellow, or a topknot, the actual knot of which I would paint yellow. How I'm going to manage this with the Weirdboy who I want to lead them I don't know, but one thing at a time.
So how is this army going to represent the Yellow Turbans? Well, from the way they were portrayed in the Dynasty Warriors/Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, they had to be negatively portrayed (Bad guys,) there needed to be thousands of them but with some sort of sentient intelligence (Orks,) high levels of psychic ability (the army will be lead by Weirdboyz,) low level of technology (infantry-based with nothing more advanced than lootas, meks and possibly Stormboyz) and a general low level of talent spread across the army (none of the units of Orks will be lead by Nobz.)
All in all I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out, not least because Stevie T's suggestion of Denheb Stone around the outside of the base seems to have worked really well.
Gretchin coming up, watch this space!
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