What did you do today.

[ashdevon]

Best of the season to you all at Nagoya Hammer.
Here we see home delivery 1646.
https://i.imgur.com/9a0i4pO.jpg

[ashdevon]

Nice painting as always everyone. Hope you are keeping safe.

[me_in_japan]

kustom ork trukz! yay! I love a good bit of orky know-wotz, I does indeedy.

As for me, I got in some gaming today at castly spev. We played a couple games of Warcry, and I am coming to a pretty firm conclusion that while the core mechanics of the game are solid, the scenarios/objectives kiiiiinda...suck. F'r example today our first game was ok, but our second was basically over before it started. each player places 2 objectives, which have to be a bit-ish distant from each other. At end of T3, whoever is carrying the most objectives wins. So of course each player ends with 2 objectives, cos that how the game started. Just...why? Why would you write that scenario? So, next time around, we're going to make up our own scenarios. The basic gameplay was fun, though

Here's some pics:

Spev's orcs vs my witch elves (yes, they are very tiny and unimpressive orcs. Spev is keepin it old skool or sumfin *shrug*)



moody lighting


less moody lighting, vs my beastmen this time (also pls note my custom cards for my beasties, which are rather schazzy if I do say so meself)


a grumpy beastman, because there is always a grumpy beastman.


Also, today I got 2 game controllers and Killer Instinct for my PC. I now have a blister on my thumb, which while painful, is terrifically natsukashii C-C-C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!!!

[Dekana]

Nice work all.
And I'm glad to see I'm inspiring some interest in the guard.

Today was extremely tedious as I applied washes to my valkyries, but the end result is looking pretty good, so time well spent I'd say..
Just have to apply decals and paint up the weapons now.

[Konrad]

I painted up the Ork Trukk that I scratch built a while ago. I also managed to paint it up without using any model paints other than Tamiya's dirt texture which is a small win for me. The blue is a little bit too saturated even with washes and weathering so I might mix in some black or something to tone it down next time.



I also painted some freehand checked patterns for the first time and it was a lot more fun an therapeutic than I expected it to be. Painting Orks is so much more relaxing than painting anything else in my opinion.

Waaaaagh! You needz ta get dem Boyz into a Gorkamorka game! GoMo is also fun an' thera...therapoo.... fun and fast and killy and fingz!

[ashdevon]

Heartwarming stuff guys. Oh to be in a community centre in Japan playing wargames. Good times.

[Jye Nicolson]

As for me, I got in some gaming today at castly spev. We played a couple games of Warcry, and I am coming to a pretty firm conclusion that while the core mechanics of the game are solid, the scenarios/objectives kiiiiinda...suck. F'r example today our first game was ok, but our second was basically over before it started. each player places 2 objectives, which have to be a bit-ish distant from each other. At end of T3, whoever is carrying the most objectives wins. So of course each player ends with 2 objectives, cos that how the game started. Just...why? Why would you write that scenario?

Uh, I'm going to answer your rhetorical question, because I'm a dork and I like doing that sort of thing. Please don't think I'm meaning it as a full throated defence of Warcry's objectives, which are clearly very deliberately a bunch of spaghetti intended to be thrown against a wall.

But!

The reason would be that four treasure tokens spaced somewhat around the board will firstly have to interact with the deployment situation, both in the initial setup and in the reserve deployments. So they should be significantly more tension in where they go and who can threaten them than the same scenario in a traditional deployment zones game.

Then the tension is what tools the warbands have to threaten the "safe" treasure tokens for the other warband. If you can put something together early you can steal them. If you need to put it together later, you can kill the carriers while trying to keep your own safe.

The three main tools for this are speed, ranged weapons and reserve groups.

For example, your opponent had Orruks right? They really would have wanted to put together a good triple for Waaaaagh! to turn their slow as a wet week fighters into pocket rockets. If you get a good or even decent double you can Wild Die it into that triple and then whoever is grouped with your leader should be able to threaten a really wide area and steal a token or engage a carrier. Similarly any really beefy unit with *reasonable* speed you can get up in the enemy's face here with a quad (move x3, attack) can at least tie up what they thought was a safe token and force them to burn activations securing it. *Really* fast troops (Stormcast birds, Skaven Giant Rats etc) can often just filch a token straight away and just book it; their only challenge then is finding a safe space. Cypher Lords can run up one of their main guys and then teleport a minion forward, who can then move on their own activation etc. etc.

Ranged weapons threaten treasure carriers. This makes treasure missions vs Stormcast Vanguard very challenging as they have both hyperfast birds and top tier ranged attacks to perforate anyone else who tries to pick up the loot. Ranged weapons often aren't that powerful compared to melee, but they're really good at killing the sort of weak/fast carrier that's otherwise optimised for treasure missions (I once found myself realising my gameplan depended on a tiny, tiny rat surviving a turn against a full team of Kharadon shooting...I did not win that game). If you have a decent number of ranged fighters you can spike down even a fairly tough carrier late game because by that point killing anyone else probably doesn't matter and causing a single treasure drop should be enough.

Reserve groups are critical because they dramatically affect where the safe spaces for the carriers are, so there are real opportunities to outplay someone if you're paying close attention to where troops will come in and they're not. For the base game I usually take the bet that the Hammer will come in late and stack the other two but where it makes sense I'll put a decent ranged unit in that Hammer so that their threat bubble is really big even if they come in late in a weird spot (for example I used a Longstrike for that before they were indirectly nerfed, and use a Castigator for it in Sacrosanct Chamber).

This is still all subject to the basic randomness of Warcry though (go heavy on ranged, pull the 3" maximum range twist ), so it's really best to play a campaign team so you get most of what you want out of just playing even if the cards hand you a virtual autoloss.

Catacombs incidentally handles this a bit differently, the difficulty of getting around and sight lines in a dungeon changes the speed and ranged dynamics for treasure missions but every mission goes 5 rounds (so chasing down a rat or bird that's holed up in a room is viable) and much more flexible reserve deployment means keeping your carriers safe is very tricky.

So, next time around, we're going to make up our own scenarios. The basic gameplay was fun, though

Wall of text aside making your own objectives is very cool, please tell us what you come up with and how the games go!

[The Other Dave]

Finished up my Taco Bell Dorfs last night, aside from the bases:

And dang if I'm not pleased with them! The big lesson from these guys is that I need to get a new pair of clippers and/or do a better job of cleaning up gates with the particular combination of smooth surfaces and Contrast paints - some of their shoulders look pretty dodgy. That's five teams for Blitz Bowl done, and just the Chaos team in the bullpen - now it's about resisting the temptation to pick up a throwing / running team to give a nice balanced range of playstyles. At any rate, the blitz bowl project is basically in the bag just in time for Direchasm to be released for Underworlds next month!

[me_in_japan]

@Jye - first and foremost, thank ee kindly for taking the time to respond in such a well considered post. Much respec' to you, and gratitude also *bows deeply*

Tbh, while I can* offer rebuttals to some of your points, taken as a whole, you're not wrong, particularly when it comes to campaigns being more balanced than single games. As a Magic player (and, worryingly, someone who now finds himself rigorously applying MtG logic to mini wargaming ) I am fully behind the idea of multiple games reducing random variance/increasing relative skill based results.

I think my gripe was more to do with the specific scenario being kind of inherently rubbish, rather than the idea of scenarios themselves being poop (or indeed, the game overall.) It's possible that part of the issue was the specific warbands in use. My elves, while fast as all get out, are really weak at range (I realise they have archers, but even a pair of very determined archers have to be reeeeeaaally lucky to take out a single orc (at 25HP), and even if they do, another orc is just going to pick up the treasure the next activation). Conversely, the elves are sufficiently fast that the orcs have next to no chance of catching them once they've got their hands on their own treasure. A waaagh could catch one or two of them, but since you cant run through opponents' minis, it's super easy to just trip them up with sacrificial blockers and run the (very short) clock. I think that is my principle gripe is how the scenario actively encourages you to play out of character. The game is supposed to be enemy warbands who hate each other's guts, skirmishing in the wartorn chaos wastes. The scenanio actively punishes you for engaging in combat, and rewards a semi-solitaire, keepaway style of playing. Dun't seem right. Maybe the fault lay in our treasure placement? Both teams had 2 treasures at the end of turn 1.

Actually, now I think on it, I vaguely recall a similar issue the first time I played Warcry, ages ago. The orcs are damn near unshiftable to the elves, while the elves are damn near uncatchable. Makes for predictable tactics on both sides. I dunno. I kinda hope I've misread something somewhere and screwed up a critical aspect of setup, or gameplay or something.

But anyway, it's not the end of the world. I'm looking forward to the new Underworlds stuff coming out next month, and am even contemplating painting something again soon. So, could be worse

*and will!

ps. I'm also disgruntled with MtG. Played in a draft this evening. Won zero games. I don't usually complain about the shuffler, but dayum I must have pissed off RNGeezus today. Straight up landlandlandlandland one game followed by nolandnolandnolandnoland the next. And again landlandlandland for game 3. Just bleurgh That's 1500gems I wont see again

Me money /Mr. Krabs

pps - I'm done now. Griping over. I promise to be a ray of sunshine, starting tomorrow

[Jye Nicolson]

The game is supposed to be enemy warbands who hate each other's guts, skirmishing in the wartorn chaos wastes. The scenanio actively punishes you for engaging in combat, and rewards a semi-solitaire, keepaway style of playing. Dun't seem right. Maybe the fault lay in our treasure placement? Both teams had 2 treasures at the end of turn 1.

Actually, now I think on it, I vaguely recall a similar issue the first time I played Warcry, ages ago. The orcs are damn near unshiftable to the elves, while the elves are damn near uncatchable. Makes for predictable tactics on both sides. I dunno. I kinda hope I've misread something somewhere and screwed up a critical aspect of setup, or gameplay or something.

You might have missed something - apart from the matchup maybe not being great for treasure, you do realise you don't get draws in Warcry right? If the clock runs down and it's a tie, you play another round. If it's still a tie at the end of that round you ignore the victory condition and switch to deathmatch for as many rounds as it takes.

That's probably bad for you if you can't make the Orruks drop treasure since they can wait till round 5 and then pound you down as they catch you, but it's a resolution