You can lead a horse to Butcher but you can't make him win

So I finally bowed to peer pressure and played a 35 point game with the Butcher (who I was given as a gift). Also new is the Frontline Gaming mat, which is great... as long as you aren't just playing with unpainted models that are primed white...
Butcher I
-Destroyer
-Devastator
-Juggernaut
-Berserker
Nyss Hunters

My opponent was running:
Xerxis I
-Tiberius
-Gladiator
-Basilisk Krea
-Aptimus Marketh
Paingiver Beast Handlers
Paingiver Task Master
Gatorman Posse
Swamp Gobber Bellow Crew

So it turns out Xerxis is pretty much a mirror image of the Butcher? Interesting. Kinda jealous that he has an arm buff and can give out pathfinder.

Pre-game:
We rolled scenario 9: Incursion, and he opted to go first, so I chose the side of the table with a hill (for the Destroyer) and a wall (for the Butcher).


Deployment:
He deployed in a brick with his heavies on my right and gators on my left.

I put the Destroyer on the right, opposite his heavies and Marketh, the Devastator on the left in case I needed it to contest the flag, and the rest of the battlegroup in the middle. I decided to try something different with the Nyss and deployed them behind the jacks.

I forgot to take the guns off the Devastator...

Turn 1:
Whole lot a runnin'. Fury went on the Berserker. The left flag disappeared, leaving the Devastator with a house between him and the action.

Turn 2:
He threatened the right flag with his heavies, while the Gobber's smoke hid Marketh and Xerxis from the Destroyer. His Gators moved up to the middle flag, just in my charge range.

I forgot that I was running the Devastator and not the Demolisher, and gave him two focus for shooting with. When I remembered (read: was reminded by my opponent, who clearly knows my army better than I do) I just ran him up. I wasn't going to do anything else with that focus anyway. The Destroyer took a fully boosted shot against Tiberion, but I forgot he had Defender's Ward on him. At dice-11, I didn't break armour. The Berserker charged a Gator, connecting with his second attack but failing to kill it even with Fury. The Juggernaut, on the other hand, put one of the large lizards down without trouble.

At this point I see an opportunity; I move the Nyss forwards and take CRAs against the Beast Handlers, killing the three that are in range. The unit passes it's command check though. The rest of the shots go into gators (and the back of the Berserker), doing very little.

Turn 3:
Xerxis gave the last Beast Handler Pathfinder, allowing him to make it across to Enrage Tiberion, who then surprised me by charging the Juggernaut. I don't think I need to tell you the outcome of that little kerfuffle. The Gladiator ran over to grab the right flag. I think the Krea tried to shoot a Nyss but missed. The Gators then charged up and killed a few Nyss. He scored a point for the right flag.

At this point I'm worried about Tiberion's proximity to Butcher. I could almost certainly take him out with the Butcher, but that would leave him to be charged by Xerxis. I can move him away, but that would leave the Destroyer too far away to benefit from Full Throttle and the Feat, and I just cant resist the temptation to charge the Gladiator. So I decide to take my chances and leave him where he is.

I drop Fury and give the Destroyer three focus. Butcher feats, casts Full Throttle, and kills a Gator over the Nyss' heads. The Destroyer charges the Gladiator and rolls well, killing it with a focus to spare. The Devastator kills a couple of Gators, and the Berserker kills the last one. I issue a run/charge order with the Nyss, with the two in front of Tiberion "charging" for a total of one damage, and the rest running up to try to block trample lanes. My mind kind of blanked here and I spent ages nudging them around to try to find the best way to make sure there was nowhere for Tiberion to go. I score a point with the Destroyer.

Turn 4:
The Krea manages to paralyze Butcher. Marketh comes up and tries to kill a Nyss Hunter with soul-boosted attack rolls, but misses. So Xerxis gives himself Pathfinder and charges up to the Nyss, managing to single-handedly kill three of them and clear out Tiberion's path. An Enraged Tiberion then puts Butcher (and two Nyss - he had to do something with the shield and tusks) into the dirt.

Postmortem:
It was an interesting game. Full Throttle is much more useful than I would have expected, but Butcher's lack of Pathfinder and speed buffs really hurts. I think I need to try the Kodiak with him, although the Grolar would probably be even better. You know, when it comes out.

I feel like Butcher is generally going to let the opponent get the charge and then try to kill him with what's left of your army, which I guess is practically and thematically appropriate when playing jack-heavy? Not sure I'm comfortable with "let opponent hit you" as a game plan though.

The dice were pretty tame overall, although my opponent did have a couple of spots of bad luck; he didn't pass a single tough roll with those Gators, if even one had survived it would have severely hampered my ability to move my Nyss over to protect Butcher (I think the Task Master stops them from getting knocked down).

At this point my Destroyer has probably killed more heavies than my Juggernaut. This is kinda why I want the Decimator to work so much: I can contribute with it while holding it back... in theory. Those extra few inches of range just seem to make such a big difference for the Destroyer though, plus of course arcing fire.

I'm not sure spreading my jacks out was such a good idea. At least keeping the Demolisher in the center and sending the Berserker towards the flag might have been wiser.

In hindsight, if I had left the Gladiator alone for another round it's possible I might have been able to kill Tiberion with the Butcher and then used the Nyss to screen him from Xerxis, perhaps even camping focus instead of using Full Throttle (although that would have left a lot of Gators alive). Eh, woulda shoulda coulda, right?

Sticking with Strakhov

Game 1
Strakhov
-Torch
-Juggernaut
-Berserker
MOW Kovnik
-Devastator
Thor
-Blaster
-Blaster
Nyss
Widowmaker Marksman
Kell Bailoch

OK, looking at my list now, It seems I was a point over. That's what happens when you throw a list together in a hurry without a pencil and paper. Anyway, I don't have many options at 50 points (the only other models I could have used were swapping in slightly more expensive jacks, the war dog, and my mechanics - Sylyss and the Koldun Lord are currently on the painting table).

My opponent's list (more or less, I think I've missed a few bits):
Venethrax
-Slayer
Satyxis Raiders
Satyxis Witches
Bane Knights
Gerlak Slaughterborn
Bloodgorgers


Pre-game:
The table is already set up for Scenario 8: Rally Point (two zones, two objectives), we just leave it like that. He loses the roll-off and chooses to go first, so I chose the side of the table with the wall. My main plan is to try to blow up the Berserker to thin out his infantry. That's pretty much the only thing I can think of to deal with all that infantry. Most of my forces will concentrate on clearing out my zone, while the Devastator stands around in his, and maybe opens up if he bunches up his models enough.


Deployment:
He put his Banes on my left, Witches on my right, the Bloodgorgers and his Caster in the middle. 

I put Strakhov on my left, Thor in the middle with the Nyss, and the Kovnik on the right.

He Advance Deployed the Raiders opposite Strakhov's module. I put Kell in the center and the Marksman on my far left.

The Marksman is out of frame on the left.

Turn 1:
He runs everything up.

That line of Raiders backed up by a second wave of Banes is really worrying me. I decide that I need to take out the raiders ASAP, which means blowing up my Berserker in their face, so he gets 3 focus. Problem is that even if I put Superiority on him, he still won't be able to make it into combat, which he needs to do in order to use that focus. I decide to use my Feat for the singular purpose of blowing up my own warjack. Happy times.

The two snipers activate first. Standing still to aim, they get a total of three RAT 10 shots. Which all miss. Strakhov Feats, casts Superiority on the Juggernaut, stands still for the aiming bonus, and kills a Raider with his gun. The Berserker then charges at a knot of Raiders. I boost his initial attacks and, at MAT 5, kill two raiders. Then I buy an extra attack, which kills the third Raider without boosting. He then fails to explode.

Wait, what just happened? Everything is going backwards! Well, so much for those plans. The Juggernaut charges up and kills another Raider. I can't reach the other Raider nearby because I positioned him so that he's hidden from all the Banes by the forest (without actually touching it). Torch tries to walk up and flame another Raider but can't reach. Thor uses Pronto to position his Blasters and uses tune-up for no reason at all. The Basters stand still and shoot at the two Raiders facing them, but one misses the boosted RAT 8 shot. The Devastator and Kovnik run up.

Turn 2:
Four Raiders charge Strakhov and roll 17 damage on their first CMA.

Postmortem:
... I'm not very good at this game.

I didn't realise Raiders had CMA, and I figured Strakhov could survive two or three if they managed to reach him. Looking back, there was no real reason not to hide him behind something - killing a raider or two was not worth leaving him exposed.


Game 2
Strakhov
-Marauder
-Juggernaut
MOW Kovnik
-Devastator
-Destroyer
Thor
-Blaster
-Blaster
Nyss
Widowmaker Marksman
Kell Bailoch

I've been meaning to give the Marauder a go, so this was my chance. My opponent was running:
Mordikaar
-Bronzeback Titan
-Gladiator Titan
-Basilisk Drake
-Basilisk Drake
-Basilisk Krea
Nihilators
Cataphract Incindiarii
Paingiver Beast Handlers
Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer
Agonizer
Extoller Soulward
Void Spirit


Pre-game:
We stuck with the same scenario. I won the roll-off and chose to go second, and stayed on the same side of the table. I was quite tired and made a lot of mistakes in this game.


Deployment:
Hi put his heavies on my right, the Incindiarii on my left, Nihilators in the middle.

I put the Kovnik's module on the right, Strakhov in the middle with Thor, and the Nyss on the left. The Marksman was Advance Deployed on the far right, and Kell in the center. I think I had some vague idea of sending Strakhov's heavies after his, the Devastator to hold the the right zone, and the Nyss and Blasters after his infantry.


Turn 1:
He moves everything up.

I give a point of focus to the Marauder. I make a mistake here and cast Superiority on the Juggernaut - I had been planning to put it on the Marauder and send him up first. I also wanted to put Sentry on the Destroyer but I very intelligently left it too far away, so I have to walk towards it first instead of... I don't actually know what I would have done with him otherwise.

Everything moves up except Kell, who I decide is best of staying where he is. The Destroyer takes a speculative shot which I think scatters over and kills a Nihilator.

Turn 2:
His infantry attack my Nyss and kill a few. A few Nihilators run to engage Kell, Thor, and the Bashers. He toes the zone with a couple of warbeasts. It seems he intended to feat this turn but forgot when he was activating his Warlock. I activate Sentry and the Destroyer shoots at the Drake but misses and scatters harmlessly.

I really should have run the Destroyer up so it would be in a position to try to do something about the Agonizer. I know it won't do much, but I consider to trying to slam the Drake over it with the Marauder. I decide putting some damage on the Broneback is the better play. Of course that means he needs Superiority and Overrun, leaving me with only one focus to allocate to the Marauder. Strakhov moves Superiority around (I don't even think to move the Juggernaut first to take advantage of the extra speed), casts Overrun, then takes an aimed shot at the Nihilator... who I forgot was engaged and toeing the forest. Strakhov missed. I have to fall back to my original plan and charge the Drake, slamming it a mighty 2 inches. It is however left with only three boxes.

The Juggernaut and Devastator run up. I position the Kovnik behind the Devastator thinking that will stop him from being slammed out of the zone (I need to re-read those rules). The Destroyer walks up shoots something for little effect. Thor uses Tune-up and Pronto on the Blasters to position them out of melee - they take a tiny bit of damage from free strikes. They then kill the Nihilators and leave another knocked down, who Kell finishes off. The Marksman kills a Paingiver, and the Nyss charge and kill some infantry. At this point I've killed most of his Nihilators.

Turn 3:
So Mordikaar has been collecting souls from his Nihilators, and he starts this turn with something like 14 fury. He brings back a bunch of Nihilators, who then - with the help of the Incidiarii - cut the Nyss down to a single man. Who fails his command check. They also kill Kell. Thor dies to a Drake's spray. The Krea and Bronzeback kill the Marauder. The Agonizer does it's thing. Oh, and he also used his Feat, giving his whole army +3 DEF (and if I miss an attack I get pushed back d3 inches).

It's really late at this point and I have to go, so I decide to play one last quick turn for fun before conceding. At this point my dice explode.

For some reason I use Strakhov to kill a Nihilator to trigger Overrun, then I realise that I don't need overrun, so I end up just leaving him in the middle of nowhere camping two focus after popping his Feat. The Juggernaut charges the Agonizer and splatters it with his axe, then finishes off the wounded Drake with his fist. This is despite needing 10s to hit on both unboosted attacks.

The Devastator gets between the Juggernaut and the Bronzeback and pushed it away with Bulldoze (if I hadn't been planning to concede this would have helped keep the juggernaut alive next turn). Then, with a firm admonition to "not let me down this time", I charged the Bronzeback with the Kovnik, doing a ridiculous 14 damage with one hit! He also uses his Drive on the Destroyer, which follows his lead and does a solid 13 damage with it's charge attack. Buying another attack, I get the 9 I need to hit and the Destroyer finishes off the Bronzeback.

Flush with this little victory, I concede.


Postmortem:
I was not thinking straight in that game. Having said that, if I had been playing on and therefore paid attention to where I put Strakhov that last round, I think I would have been in a decent position. After all, I had three untouched heavies and he was down to just one, the Blasters were almost untouched and could still contest and do a bit of damage. I was going to start losing points very quickly on the left zone and the forest would make it hard for me to get my Jacks over to contest it, but I think I had a chance - in fact, in retrospect I could have pushed the Krea out of the zone and started scoring in that last round.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, the Kovnik did good work and I'm considering running him with two jacks more often - at least if I know I'm going to be facing an Agoniser.

Back in Black Ops

I've decided to give an older Warcaster a second chance:
Strakhov
-Juggernaut
-Decimator
-War Dog
Man-O-War Kovnik
-Demolisher
Nyss
Kell Bailoch

The general idea was to use the Juggernaut as a cheap jack bullet, and the Decimator to take shots earlier on then do work after the Juggernaut dies. I considered swapping out the Decimator but decided to stick with him for a little longer. I wanted a clam-jack to hold zones, but that was too many jacks for Strakhov to fuel, so it would have to be marshalled. I decided I wanted to bring out the MOW Kovnik, hoping to get a charge under Strakhov's feat, along with the Demolisher. The Nyss are there because they are still my only infantry unit. I had three points left, so I added the dog and a solo. I considered the mechanics, but decided Kell would probably do more good. I figured the dog would help if Strakhov had to get his hands dirty.


My opponent was running:
Makeda 1
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Basilisk Krea
-Aptimus Marketh
Paingiver Beast Handlers
Cataphract Cetrati
Agonizer


Pregame:
We rolled up Scenario 11 (in to the breach). I won the roll-off and chose the side with two forests (one of which was partly in the zone) because of Kell, the Nyss, and also because I thought it would give me a good place to set Strakhov if I wanted him in the zone.

I was hoping to take out his Gladiator early with my Juggernaut in order to deny him Pathfinder, but without any easy-to-kill infantry for triggering Overrun, it didn't seem likely. I didn't think the Nyss or Kell would be all that useful this game either, which left me without much of a plan other than to try to get the jump on his heavies. His army didn't have any shooting, so Occultation wasn't going to do much.


Deployment:
He set up in a big block in the center of his deployment zone.

I put the Demolisher in the center, with Strakhov and the dog behind it. The Decimator was on his right, ready to toe the zone, and the Juggernaut on his left, more-or-less facing the Bronzeback. The Nyss were on the far right where they could run through the forest into the zone. The Kovnik was next to the Juggernaut for reasons that shall soon become clear. Kell Advance Deployed into the forest on the right.


Turn 1:
He moved everything up. His Cetrati moved 10 inches in Shield Wall, then he cycled Defenders Ward onto them thanks to Marketh, leaving them at Def 14 Arm 22.

One focus to the Decimator. I ran the Demolisher and Decimator up. Strakhov cast Superiority on the Juggernaut and Sentry on the Decimator (eh, why not, his cannon was one of my only weapons against the Cetrati). The Juggernaut, bereft of focus, walked forwards six inches. Then the Kovnik slammed it forwards another three inches (hits on 3s, and a damage roll of dice minus 11, and the Juggernaut can't be knocked down thanks to Superiority), helping to make up for the lack of a run move.

I decided that Kell needed to get around the Cetrati in order to do anything useful, so I ran him off to the far right. I figured even if he sent some Cetrati after him, that would at least draw them away and split his forces a bit. The Nyss ran up to toe the zone.

Turn 2:
Marketh misses Kell with a spell, so he casts Savagery on the Cetrati with Makeda sends two off to do the job instead. The rest toe the zone, and the Agonizer hides behind them. I consider taking the Sentry shot with the Decimator, but I don't think anything is in range. His other models shuffle around.

Because he activated Marketh before casting Savagery with Makeda, the Cetrati do not have Defender's Ward on them this turn. I guess that's worth the loss of Kell. Four Nyss charge the two Cetrati on the right, the rest flank. Very little damage is dealt. The Decimator takes his shots but doesn't manage to kill any Cetrati. Since it looks like the flag is going to be ignored this game, I put the Juggernaut where he can't be charged by the Bronzeback but can potentially charge towards the flag or into the zone, and the Demolisher runs up to protect it from the Gladiator. Strakhov moves up and tosses a cinder bomb, hoping the cloud will settle somewhere useful. The Kovnik runs up.

Turn 3:
So I forgot about Savagery. The Bronzeback walks nine inches to reach the Juggernaut. Luckily this meant he couldn't be Enraged or he wouldn't be able to walk around the obstruction, so he was only at P&S 17. He used the Bronzeback's animus to push the Juggernaut up to the Demolisher, so that he could use the chain attack to throw the Juggernaut into him and still be in range to keep swinging. While the Demolisher was knocked down, Superiority kept the Juggernaut on his feet. Thanks to some low rolling however, the Juggernaut was left with all his systems!

The Cetrati moved up to where one was engaging the Demolisher but was out of his melee range. The others killed three of the engaging Nyss. The baby elephant started to cry, but was only left with one fury on him. The Paingivers took some fury off the Bronzeback. Oh, Makeda had feated this turn, and at some point I took the Sentry shot with the Decimator. I think it missed.

The Juggernaut was too close to the Agonizer to receive focus, but luckily the Decimator was clear and was given three. Superiority was upkept. We couldn't remember if the Jack Marshal advantage could be used to shake, but we didn't think so, so the Demolisher stayed down. If I wanted to do anything with it this turn, and I did, I would need to kill the Cetrati engaging him. My best bet to do that would be to kill the unit leader, who was already damaged. So Strakhov aimed, rolled two shots on Rapid Fire, boosted the attack roll for the first and then boosted the damage roll to finish off the unit leader. The second shot hit the engaging Cetrati and did some damage. He also used the feat.

Next the Kovnik used his Drive successfully, and charged the Bronzeback. Finally, a chance to get off that epic P&S 15 Weaponmaster charge! I had been looking forward to this for a long time! At Mat 8, the attack hit. I eagerly picked up the full complement of damage dice and sent them spinning across the table.

(Re-enactment of actual events)

Sigh. Oh well, I forgive him, it happens to the best of us after all. Luckily the Decimator put on a better show, finally felling the mighty beast with his last attack. The Juggernaut the walked over and killed a couple of Cetrati, freeing the Demolisher to stand up and take a couple of boosted shots. Fantastic rolls on the first took out the Agonizer, while the second did some respectable damage to the Krea.

The Nyss engaging the Cetrati did nothing. Four of the others took a CRA on Marketh but rolled poorly against his soul-fueled armour, leaving him with two or three boxes. If only I'd activated them first. The last two combined their efforts against a Cetrati, also doing nothing at all.

Turn 4:
Thanks to Makeda's feat, the dead Cetrati were restored. Combining their efforts, they... did not manage to finish off the Juggernaut! Sadly the Krea did. The Gladiator meanwhile murdered the poor defenseless Arm 17 Demolisher. The Nyss mostly died to some Cetrati and Makeda, the rest broke.

The Demolisher's wreck marker was a problem; I would need to cast Superiority just to reach the Gladiator. I allocated three focus to the Decimator, then Strakhov cast Superiority on it before moving to the relative safety of the forest. He rolled three shots, two missed needing sixes, but the other killed off a returned Cetrati. Looking at the photos now, I'm not sure that he was close enough to the edge of the forest to take those shots - for some reason I keep thinking he can see through forests. Oh well. The dog charged another and actually did some damage before returning to the forest.

I didn't think the Kovnik was in range to charge or even take an aimed shot at anything, so I moved him up to the wall and shot at the Gladiator. He missed. Sigh. The Decimator charged in but with only three attacks, was unable to finish it off. I hate having to pay to charge. The Nyss failed to rally.

Turn 5:
More poor dice saw the Decimator survive the Gladiator and even the Krea, but not the Cetrati. Who then went on to kill the dog. I conceded.

Postmortem:
After revisiting Strakhov in this game, I feel that Harkevich is a lot more forgiving. Pathfinder and Escort makes the positioning of his battlegroup much less critical. Jump-start helps you recover from bad situations. TheArm buff means you don't have to perfectly judge threat ranges, you can just walk up and let them take their best shot. His feat gives you extra attacks in addition to the free charge. If you really need a specific solo dead, or to apply more force in a specific area, Broadsides can help. And while Fortune isn't the most powerful offensive buff, it's reasonably versatile.

In contrast Strakhov's only offensive buff is Superiority. It's a great spell, but that's just one jack, and the high casting cost further limits it's use. Occultation is nice but situational, and Sentry is hard to get much use out of (even if you have a model worth casting it on, you end up needing to stay close in order to keep re-casting it). Strakhov brings a lot of mobility to his army, but you have to be good at positioning and judging distances to really take advantage of it.

In other words Harkevich can help you recover from mistakes, which is useful if you're going to make a lot of them, while Strakhov can help you to out-maneuver your opponent... if you know what you're doing. I still don't.


It was an interesting and enjoyable game with some great moments, such as the the Juggernaut surviving a Bronzeback attack. Some thoughts:

I got very lucky with my opponent forgetting to put Fury on the Agonizer.

The Nyss didn't do very much more than serve as a distraction; in this game I'm not sure if that was really my fault though.

I kinda threw Kell away early; I really need to stop doing that.

I didn't have clear charge lanes at first, and after that it was too late to get an alpha charge off of Strakhov's feat. I don't see too many times where I could have done much with Overrun either.

Marshalled jacks are very vulnerable to Knockdown and Stationary.

I missed having a Destroyer. I really want the Decimator's shooting to be worth it, but it just isn't happening. He still hit's pretty hard, but he just gets so few attacks that perhaps it's worth investing in Torch instead - plus he can get Pathfinder. Or Behemoth.

If the Decimator had managed to kill the Gladiator I actually would have been in a good place.

It had to happen.

Remember that model I was so happy to have finally finished assembling? The one that I said was one of my favourite 40K models? Well, guess which model just fell off a high shelf onto a hard stone floor?

Sigh. I was moving a metal tray full of models with magnetised bases onto a high shelf when... I guess it bumped something that was on the shelf and slipped out of my hand a little, hitting the shelf? I really don't know what happened, all I know is that a handful of models went flying past my face and crashed into the ground. I still don't get how it happened; I took the tray to my desk and tried shaking it and jerking it and not a single model budged, but when I was slowly and carefully maneuvering it into place earlier the models had practically thrown themselves off.

So unless there's more models that ended up somewhere that I couldn't see, four models actually fell. Two were unpainted Tallarn, and seem pretty much undamaged. One was my painted Tallarn, but he only seemed to suffer a minor bit of chipped paint (and I wasn't all that fond of the model anyway), I could repair him easily enough if I could be bothered. And the fourth one was, you know, the model that I've spent hours and hours and hours working on over the span of close to two years. I mean, that photo you see? That little design made from wire? That probably took somewhere around 4 or 5 hours to do. Maybe more. You have no idea until you try it, how hard it is to bend such tiny pieces of wire into such specific shapes and glue them in such specific positions. Even just picking them up with a pair of fine tweezers is a challenge; I can't tell you how many times I applied a bit too much pressure when trying to lift them up only to have them somehow twing off and disappear. And that's not the only place where I applied that effect.

The base? I spent hours fashioning components and wiring them up, then after the milliput had hardened it turned out the switch was broken and stuck in the "on" position. Yes, at least it wasn't stuck in the "off" position, but still, I spent ages carefully cutting it back out, carving the hardened milliput away from the connections while trying not to break them. I had to go and buy a solder pump just to clear the old solder so I could fit the new switch and solder it back in. I'm not even going to talk about soldering wires onto an LED that's less than 2mm across it's widest point.

Having said all that, the only real damage that I can see is that the spear tip broke off, a tiny bit of greenstuff needs to be redone (literally half a finger), and a couple of bits need to be re-glued. The LED still works, thankfully. To be honest, considering it's a metal and resin model full of custom work that fell almost two meters onto a hard stone floor, I'm amazed that the damage wasn't much, much worse. The spear tip will be a bit of a pain to replace, but it's not so bad. Still, the moment when those models hit the floor... damn, but that's not something I want to have happen again.

In other news, I've finished Strakhov's fancy new base and glued him down. It's going to be a while before I can paint him, but he's ready for me to have another go with, which I've been looking forwards to. I'm really hoping he doesn't fall of a table or something.

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Skorne

Turns out that Ceramic Cafe has re-opened. I didn't feel like doing anything too ambitious so I tried to keep it simple. Here's the result:

It was supposed to be bright red. Seems watering down ceramic paints as if they were acrylic paints is not such a good idea. Oh well.

After my last game against Skorne I modified my list a bit:
Harkevich
-Black Ivan
-Decimator
-Juggernaut
Nyss Hunters
Koldun Lord
Widowmaker Marksman

I opted for the Decimator because I thought he could be useful for holding zones: he should be able to put damage on heavies while keeping them up to 12 inches away. I added the Juggernaut cos I figured I needed at least two armour crackers against Skorne, and chose it over the Spriggan because, well, I felt like taking him for a spin. Also the Spriggan is not painted. The Nyss are still the only infantry that I own other than the mechanics. I'm trying to play without my "focus crutches" (Sylyss and the Koldun Lord), so I decided to take Kell and the Widowmaker Marksman for solo removal, but at the last minute I suffered a moment of weakness and swapped the Koldun Lord back in.

His list was:
Makeda 3
-Molik Karn
-Gladiator
-Basilisk Krea
Paingiver Beast Handlers
Agonizer
Some kind of shooty unit with a UA (it had two banners)
A medium-base solo

So Lady Thanos is the leader of the Skorne huh? And they like wearing red? Who does that remind me of? This list was quite different from the last one; at least my Nyss had something to shoot at this time. I ask about Karn and it turns out his threat range is 13 inches. So much for my "cunning" plan with the Decimator.

He won the roll off and chose to go first. I deployed Harkevich opposite my zone (which had a very inviting looking forest on the side) with Widowmaker and Decimator. Ivan was pretty much in the center, looking to walk up a hill. The Juggernaut was to the left, eying a cozy looking corner of the other zone protected by a wall, with the Koldun Lord standing behind him. The Nyss are far on my left.


Round 1
He does some shuffling and repositioning and stuff, but later laments that he didn't move up far enough, basically giving me the zones.

Harkevich puts Fortune on the Decimator, and of course escort on himself. Koldun Lord doesn't move and just uses power booster. Everything else runs.


Round 2
He moves some of his infantry into the zone, but spaces them out so there's only around five actually in it. I think he killed Cylena this turn with a CRA. His heavies move toward Harkevich.

Three focus to the Decimator, one to Ivan, two upkeeps. The Nyss walk up and shoot his infantry on one side. I wasn't really thinking about it, but ended up clearing the zone. The Juggernaut (who I carelessly ran out of Harkevich's control area) gets focus from the Koldun Lord again and runs into his designated corner. The Marksman shoots a Paingiver, which I feel very happy about until I realize they are a unit and not solos, so he has plenty more. Dammit. I move Black Ivan to shield the objective on my side. I'd love to get a shot at the Agonizer but it's well hidden, so I consider shooting at the objective on his side, but I decided my more immediate concern was taking down his heavies, so instead I shoot at Karn and do something crazy like 13 damage (this was after he made me re-roll the attack). The Decimator shoots at Karn but against DEF 12 I decide to boost the attack rolls as I really want to push him back as much possible, so I only do about 3 or 4 damage total. Harkevich just runs over to the far right of the zone to be safe.

My opponent then tells me I've just scored two points. Nice!

How the hell is Khador so much farther up the board?

Round 3
Karn suddenly changes direction and charges (and kills) the Juggernaut, with Makeda's help, who uses Karn's animus to move back to safety afterwards. One of Makeda's Guardians moves into my zone, while the other heads towards my Nyss. The Gladiator runs into my zone, the Krea into his. The Agonizer also jams my zone while denying me focus allocation. His infantry kill a few Nyss. I don't score this turn.

You can't see Harkevich, but he's still hiding in the corner like the big manly man that he is.

OK, so I can't give out any focus. This is not good. Not a surprise, but not good. With the Juggernaut gone, I'm thinking going for a scenario win is probably a good idea. I drop escort; he's pretty close now. The Marksman shoots something, I don't remember what. Harkevich walks up to get Black Ivan back in his control area (I really need to pay attention to the whole "control area" thing), feats, and shoots at the Agonizer, boosting the attack roll. He shield-guards it with the Guardian and it kills her (I think I boosted damage). I cast Broadsides and between Harkevich and the Decimator I put the wretched thing out of it's misery. Black Ivan takes the shot against Molik Karn and does like 3 damage.

The Decimator slams the Gladiator out of the zone for free thanks to the feat, doing a few points of damage I think with the free shot but none with the slam. I was hoping to slam it far enough to put some damage on the objective (which would have given me an extra damage dice too), but it only moved an inch. That turned out to be a big deal later (FORESHADOWING!). The Koldun Lord gives Black Ivan a point of focus, which it seems the crying baby elephant can't prevent since it's "given" not "allocated". Ivan declares a charge against Karn, but I decide to take my free shot against the remaining Guardian since I think it's going to be blocking my Nyss from threatening Makeda or Karn soon. At ARM 20, I decide to go all in on killing it and spend my focus point on boosting the damage roll. I do 4 damage. Dammit. Then Ivan misses his charge attack. Double dammit. Finally the Nyss move up and kill all the rest of his infantry unit, barring the flag bearer (who doesn't have a gun, so that's OK). I score another control point for dominating my zone, putting me at 3.

In case you're wondering, the Gladiator normally walks backwards to protect his face. From axes.

Round 4
Makeda charges Ivan, her remaining Guardian charges my Nyss. I made a mistake last turn and aimed with them all, as a result only two are actually in the zone and the Guardian is able to kill them both. However, he forgot to feat before making his first attack; he feats and takes a Fury point from the death of the second Nyss. He has a spell up that gives everything boosted attack rolls when attacking anything in Makeda's melee range, so when he rolls snake-eyes with his first attack against Ivan I Dodge him just out of her range, while still being about half a millimeter in the zone.

This is quite a stroke of bad luck for him, but he really pulls out a pro play here. Makeda kills the Koldun Lord with a spell, which allows him to make a short move with Makeda, who moves back up to Ivan. She also gets a point of Fury back thanks to the feat. She makes one attack and camps one Fury. Now a buffed Molik Karn makes a ton of P&S 15 weapon-master attacks with free boosted damage rolls, does quite well for damage, and kills Ivan off despite the +3 ARM. Ouch. At one point he actually missed an attack roll, but Karn has an ability that lets him boost a roll after he rolls it, allowing him to throw another dice and prevent the Dodge.

Now the buffed Gladiator charges the Decimator. Remember how he only got slammed an inch? Well, because he was getting a free charge he charged sideways to try to make up the three inches for the damage boost, meaning he was no longer between the Decimator and the objective. he rolled quite well for damage but couldn't knock out any systems. The Krea then ran into my zone, and his medium-base solo ran towards the Nyss. At the end of the turn he scores his first point for dominating his zone.

Notice the second wreck marker? Sigh.

At this point I'm in trouble. The Decimator can probably kill the Gladiator (probably), but that won't let me score. I can bulldoze the Krea out of the zone and score one point, but that leaves Harkevich wide open to a Karn in the face. I can just run away, but then Karn eats the Decimator and I'm just delaying the inevitable. Plus it's getting late and food has become part of the equation. So I go for the only plan I can think of that has the slightest chance of success; at least we'll finish quickly one way or the other. Unfortunately according to my calculations I need to roll 14 on three dice, so it's not what you'd call a sure thing.

So I need to use Beat-Back to push both Warbeasts out of the zone. By my calculations it will take at least five hits, leaving me with just one focus left. So I drop Fortune and allocate one focus to the Decimator. I activate the Marksman and take a shot at the objective. I'm at dice minus 6, I figure I have decent odds of doing more than one point of damage if I roll rather than use Sniper, which would give me better odds of taking it out later, so I roll... a 6. Sigh.

Then I realise that I forgot to count Harkevich's initial attack when calculating how much focus I need - I only need 4 focus to make 5 attacks! So I cheekily ask my opponent if it's OK if I can retroactively allocate him another point. I regret doing that -I'm trying to move away from this beginner's mentality- but in the heat of the moment I got carried away, and he said it was OK, so gave the Decimator a second focus point.

Harkevich charges the Krea and beats it out of the zone, then the Gladiator suffers the same fate (and is Staggered to boot). That will get me my fourth point. Now I need to destroy the objective to win. No longer engaged, the Decimator charges the objective; I wasn't sure he'd make it, but it turns out to be just a smidgen over 7 inches away. At straight dice with an extra attack, I need to roll 15 on five dice. I roll 12. I concede.

Harkevich knocks back multiple monsters many times his size, but to no avail.

After shaking hands, I glance at the table and suddenly realise that the Nyss might just be in range of the objective. We play it out real quick like, just to see if I actually had a chance or not. Only one Nyss is in range to shoot at it (at least without taking a free strike from a MAT 8 model). He's at dice minus 8. He rolls... 11 on two dice, destroying the objective.


Postmortem
I just don't know what to make of that. My opponent was talking afterwards as if he had lost, but I had already conceded - besides, he allowed me to shift a focus after activating, so that's not exactly kosher. I also don't think it's fair to say "if I hadn't conceded I would have won"; it's a little outside of the scope of this kind of discussion, but I won with a very lucky roll, if I hadn't conceded I would have been moving differently, I would have activated models in a different order, overall I would have physically picked up and thrown the dice differently, in other words there's no reason to believe I would have rolled the same result. But as a wise lion once said, "You can never be told what would have happened".

That was actually the most interesting game I've played so far. Lots of small decisions had large effects, positioning was a huge deal, and lots of movement tricks (at least compared to my games so far) were happening on both sides. Ivan dodging and Makeda following with that slick move was very cool and a turning point in the game. My failing to focus on the Guardian with Black Ivan's shooting left my Nyss in a poor position to help out later. His sideways charge with the Gladiator opened the path to the objective and also put him close enough to the Krea for Harkevich to knock them both out of the zone.


He had some bad dice at times, while I had pretty good dice overall, with a couple of really good rolls. We both made a number of mistakes. He failed to get into the zones early, and positioned the Gladiator poorly at the end. He should have thrown the Decimator away or something instead of trying to crack it at ARM 23, and sending in the Agonizer to hold the zone was probably not a good idea overall. I was careless with the Nyss; if I had jammed more into the zone he wouldn't have scored there, I would have been putting pressure on Makeda and in position to potentially kill his Paingivers, and also possibly in range to attack the objective. If I had focused on either killing the Guardian or killing Karn with Ivan on the feat turn, I would have done more good than not killing either. Or perhaps I should have tried to put some damage on the objective instead, that would have changed things a bit (although he actually complained about it getting in his way later, so maybe not killing it wasn't a bad idea at the time). I forgot to advance-deploy the Koldun Lord, and in retrospect I probably should have positioned him across from the infantry (admittedly I was under the vague impression at the time that he only had one or two Paingivers). I was very careless and kept leaving my Warjacks out of Harkevich's control area. I didn't think much about where my Koldun Lord was standing, I might have had some vague idea of putting him somewhere where he could move up and spray something, but in retrospect I should have kept him well back and as protected as possible, or at least toed the hill for the def bonus. When I moved Harkevich over to catch Ivan in the feat, I unthinkingly moved him within  around 13 inches of Molik Karn. Luckily he was facing the wrong way, or else it could have been a shorter game. And of course my complete brainless moment when I forgot to count Harkevich's initial attack.

As far as models go, the Decimator didn't play quite the way I wanted, but I wouldn't have been able to clear the zone without his Broadside shot, and like that I can use him while keeping him a safe distance away. Being able to reach out and hit almost anything without paying to boost with Black Ivan is very useful, though I didn't actually manage to do any damage that mattered this game (other than forcing him to heal a point or two). I just don't know if he's worth taking with other casters though. The Nyss were consistent with their shooting, this was one of the few games where they did good work for me. In theory the Juggernaut died without doing anything, but in practice it helped keep him busy on that side of the board, and a Spriggan's death would have been a bigger blow. The Marksman really didn't end up contributing, next time I want a sniper I'll probably take Kell for the second shot. Ultimately the Koldun Lord didn't count for much other than getting the Juggernaut into place then getting Ivan killed, but the fact is I need that extra focus on the first turn if I want to run three Warjacks, and having the option of an extra focus is kind of a big deal with that Agonizer running around.

While Escort was dropped early, it helped me get into a good position, which is a big deal. Broadsides and the feat kept me in the game that turn when the Agonizer did his thing, and Beat-Back is what psuedo-won it for me. So while Harkevich is not the power caster that he initially appeared to be to my inexperienced eyes, he does seem to be able to get me out of some bad situations.

I mean, thinking about it, he spent something like 15 Fury in one turn, while I had crucial turn where I couldn't allocate. He got all the charges off, his Warbeasts all had access to +2 movement and Pathfinder (including a Warbeast that's already SPD 6), meaning he could match or exceed a big part of what Harkevich brings to the table, and his Warbeasts all had access to free charges and were pumping out like 7 high-power attacks each while mine could have (but didn't) put out 4 tops (OK, plus one more medium power attack in the case of the poor Juggernaut). Despite all that I was still in the game thanks to Harkevich's ability to get some work out of his Warjacks without allocating focus and to keep them alive (well, at least one of them alive) for one turn, and of course Beat-Back is proving to be a bit of a big deal. Well, thanks to all that and to a lot of luck.


Musings
I've never felt so strapped for focus as I did on that one turn when I could calculate exactly how much focus I needed to stand a pretty decent shot of winning the game, and I thought I was one short. On a different topic, I  take back what I said about Skorne being Khador like: they have a 2 point unit that buffs multiple warbeasts, clearly they are more like Menoth. This game, and a comment my friend made about Warmachine being combo-driven, got me thinking. The way I see it, there's a difference between combos and packages.

Lets start with combos. Consider Cygnar: you can take a Hunter with Arcane Tempest Gun Mages for Snipe or other magic shots, or with Sword Knights for the Pronto move, or with Arlan Strangeways for a fully boosted shot, with a Journeyman for full focus without taxing your Warcaster, or with your Warcaster for whatever he gives it - Kraye for light-cav moves is a notable example. You can do the same with a charger or Cyclone or others, the different combos then have give different jacks more or less advantages - for example the Journeyman gives the Chargers two fully boosted shots, the Gun Mages give the Cyclone magic bullets on all it's shots but don't help the Sentinel or Charger as much, etc. Those same models and others can also help other jacks, such as the Stormclad or Centurion, for different over-all effects. You've also got other available buffs, such as Arcane Shield and so on.

Combos give you a lot of different ways to play the game. Packages do not. While on the surface they may look the same, a package (in this definition) is when you have only a single available or practical combination. Think about the Winter Guard. You have a basic unit and a number of bolt-ons. The Unit Attachment and Weapon Attachments are not combinations, they are optional add-ons to this one unit. The only actual "combination" here is Joe, and he only works for Winter Guard. Yes, in theory this means he can buff four different units, but he's mainly just used with one or two, and if you're taking the Infantry or Rifle Core, you are taking Joe. Full stop. There's no mix-and-match, no variety. It's a package. In practical terms it really just comes down to whether you want the basic Winter Guard Infantry Death Star ^TM, or the deluxe version with the weapon attachments.

I like combos: they keep the game interesting. I do not like packages: they just complicate your turn. I'm not saying packages don't have legitimate reasons to be in the game; they do, as it creates a risk-reward scenario: a package usually performs much better per point than any non packaged or buffed unit or model, but at the cost of increased vulnerability: take away the squishy buffing model and what's left suddenly under-performs (in theory at least, balance is always a tricky thing). It makes the game more tactical. Yes, combos have the same effect of forcing you to make tactical decisions, while being more interesting and varied, but they are also much harder to design and keep balanced.

So I'm not saying that packages are bad, only that I don't personally like them. Right now the game is already too complicated for me so adding complications that don't make my army more interesting doesn't appeal to me, but also I don't like how... scripted they are. There's no decisions to be made, no creativity. Taking Winter Guard? Take Joe. Playing Menoth? Take Choir. Taking a Hunter? Ooh, who should I take him with? My caster? Do I want to spare the focus? Do I have any battlegroup-only spells that are worth it with him? Gun mages? Are they worth taking in my army on their own merit, and do the magic bullet options make up for the lack of a boosted attack roll? Sword Knights? I'm taking the Journeyman anyway, shall I throw it on him or would that force me to play him too far forwards? So many things to try!

That's why, in recent forum threads, I've argued against Khador getting a choir-like unit, or solos that buff a very limited set of units or models. Having said that, I don't have such a problem with introducing new UAs, since they are actually part of the unit and so don't count in my head as a "fake combo" the way packages do. It's a perception thing more than anything else, although it's still better than something like the Choir; I mean a UA might be an auto-include if you're taking that unit, but the Choir is an auto-include in every army. That's just boring to me.

A game at last!

I finally got a proper game in! We played at 35 points, I ran a Harkevich list I'd quickly thrown together. I was trying to bring more anti-infantry than my old lists, and also to try to play without my usual complement of focus-supporting solos. The Juggernaut is there for cheap armour cracking, and the Berserker is an independent unit that fills six points (I didn't really have any other models I could put there except mechanics and solos), plus I like the idea of having an independent heavy that can stray far from my caster if need be.
Harkevich
-Demolisher
-Juggernaut
-Berserker
Nyss Hunters
Thor
-Basher
-Basher

My opponent was playing Skorne:
Dominar Rasheth
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Sentry
Agonizer
Gatormen
Swamp Gobbers
Paingivers
Some solos/UAs?

We played a scenario with two zones and two objectives that contest the zones. I won the roll-off and opted to go second. I chose the side of the table with a forest in the center so Harkevich could stand in it if needed.

He deployed centrally with his gators on my right. I placed the berserker on my far left, then the Nyss, the Juggernaut, Harkevich in the center, with the Demolisher then Thor's group on my right to face-off against the gators.

Turn 1
Everything runs up. He moves gators over to other side to get at Nyss.

I put out my upkeeps and toe the zones. As usual I positioned my intended Fortune target (the Berserker) too far from Harkevich, so I cast it on the Demolisher instead.


Turn 2
He kills some nyss with an AOE spell he arced through something. The AOE stuck around to do POW 12s to anyone that entered it.

The Nyss charge some gators and kill one or two (I got less charges than I could have because of the lingering AOE). The Bashers pronto up and shoot at the Agonizer: one boosts the attack and misses, the other aims and boosts damage for a total of three damage. The Demolisher can't get line of sight on the agonizer, so it shoots at  the Sentry with fortune and boosts the damage rolls, but rolls poorly on damage and does very little. Harkevich moves forwards enough to stay out of (or is that inside?) the killbox, but still toeing the forest. The Berserker runs up the far left side. The Juggernaut repositions to charge his Bronzeback if he kills the objective. I'm trying to keep my heavies safe from his Titans using the objectives, so if he destroys them I charge him.


Turn 3
He kills most of the Nyss with the gators (MAT 9), and the Bashers with the Sentinel. He kills Thor with the AOE spell. He destroys the objective on the left with the Bronzeback. The two surviving Nyss fail the leadership roll for casualties (to be fair they've already passed like 3 or 4 leadership rolls at this point; it seems Gatormen cause Terror or something).

Finally remembered to take a photo! The Agonizer is behind the ruin.

I can't allocate focus because of the Agoniser, and my heavies are too close to his Titans. Things aren't looking good, so I decide to just have some fun. The Demolisher Bulldozes the Sentry out of the way and moves past, taking a little damage from the free strike, and shoots twice at Rasheth. One misses and kills a Paingiver or something, the other hits. Pow 15 vs arm 14, but Rasheth only takes one dice from shooting attacks. I roll a two, for three damage. Which he transfers.

Now for the fun part: Harkevich feats and declares a charge at a Gatorman. He uses the feat shot to shoot at the Titan but at dice-7 does no damage (I didn't want to risk killing the Gatorman, unlikely as that was, as I needed the beat-back move). He kills the Gatorman with his charge attack (see, Nyss? That's how it's done!) and uses Beat-back to move up to the Agoniser. Which he kills. This handily leaves me with 3 focus (all part of my cunning plan!), which he uses to cast Broadsides. I forget to use Harkevich's own shot, but the Demolisher hits Rasheth again... and rolls a two again. This time he doesn't bother to transfer the damage. I was originally planning to charge the Bronzeback with the Juggernat in such a way that he ends up close enough for Harkevich to get the Escort bonus, but I decide to slam it instead, since at least that lets me kill a Paingiver. The Bronzeback takes no damage.

The two remaining Nyss move away from the Gators to clear up a charge lane from the Berserker and die to free strikes. The Berserker charges the two Gators, the charge attack hits and isn't enough to kill it (did not expect that!) and the second attack misses.

Hmm, looks like he's about to start scoring in the right zone...

Turn 4
The Bronzeback walks up and kills Harkevich.

He kicks sand in Harkevich's face.

Oops! I mean...

... he smacks Harkevich with his tusks.

Postmortem
Trying to flank with a Berserker doesn't really work, even if it has Pathfinder. I suppose I could have killed the Agonizer and camped 3 focus, on the feat, with the Juggernaut close enough for Escort, but I don't really believe that would have bought me another round. It was a fun game and I really enjoyed myself. It was my first time playing against Skorne, they kind of feel like Khador, but more so, if that makes any sense. Well, except for that Agonizer - how does such a tiny little baby elephant just shut down my army like that? Crazy stuff, but it highlights something about Warmachine: you can't just build a list to do one thing well, you need to have answers to different problems. From the sounds of it, one list can't answer all problems, which is why you have different lists in competitions. This game has many layers, huh?


After that game I lent my models to a Cryx player who didn't have his army. He had never played with Khador before. We changed the list a bit:
Harkevich
-Black Ivan
-Spriggan
-Juggernaut
-War dog
Koldun Lord
Nyss Hunters

Long story short, Black Ivan went straight for the Agonizer and took it out. The Gators murdered the Nyss even more thoroughly this time. The Juggernaut and Spriggan killed the objective and the Bronzeback under the feat, allowing Harkevich to toe the zone and score three points. Black Ivan charged the Gators and killed one and a support piece with the free shot. Even with an arm debuff partially countering the feat, the gators consistently rolled low and barely scratched him (not having the distance to charge helped), and on the last attack they missed, allowing him to use his dodge move to step between them and towards Rasheth. This caused him to keep his support models between his caster and Ivan rather than worrying about jamming zones. Meanwhile the remaining two titans together with the arm debuff spell just managed to destroy the feated Spriggan (the Sentinel missed once or twice - man that felt good!).

At this point the only models in the right zone were Harkevich, the Spriggan, the Juggernaut, a Titan, and a Paingiver. We discussed how best to clear the zone; the Juggernaut could throw the Titan out while Harkevich and the Koldun Lord could shoot at the Paingiver, but (with a little prompting from me) he chose a different path.

The Juggernaut moved away from the Titan over to the Paingiver, taking 6 damage from a free strike, and killed with a boosted attack. Harkevich charged the Titan and used Beat-back three times to push it out of the zone, leaving him to dominate it and win.


WOOHOO! My Spriggan killed a Bronzeback! Harkevich won the game using Beat-back! That's living the dream man! Yes, OK, that probably wasn't the smartest way to play it since it left Harkevich staring at a Titan, but it was fun. It was nice to see that my army can work when a good player is behind the wheel. Hopefully I'll be getting more games in from here on out.

Random Update

Between moving country, searching for a new job and trying to get up to speed in said job, I haven't really had much to say on the blog. But I recently finished assembling a model I've been working on for a very long time, and I decided it justified a post. Here's a couple of teaser photos:

After an unholy amount of effort the design finally came out looking pretty good.

The money shot! This was actually taken earlier, before I had fixed the pattern.

The model is one of my very favourite 40K models, I bought it at least three years ago and started working on the conversion about two years ago, but gave up when I couldn't find a good way to make the bases the way I wanted. However, when I finally managed to fit a battery in a normal(ish) looking base, I started looking at him again. Then I got busy with Warmachine models, then with moving and job hunting, then with Warmachine models again. And when I finally did start working on it again, I spent ages on little details that I wanted exactly right. I decided that it was finished and then realized I had forgotten something or wanted to change something about three times before I finally ran out of things to do. And (with the exception of the subject of the photos), all of the things I was doing were really very minor and subtle and most people probably would never notice if I don't point them out. But if I didn't do them, I would know. And I would never be happy with it.

Other than that, I finished assembling my Nyss grunts (Cylena still has a bit of work), and did some work on another model I'm trying to get to light up. Unfortunately I won't be able to paint any of them any time soon as it seems the only way to get spray primer in this country is to ship it in via surface post, which takes like two months. I did do a bunch of painting on another big project I've been meaning to finish for over two years though, I was very happy with that, though there's some more work to do yet.

I haven't been able to play very much Warmachine, but I gave my friends a few demo games. The Decimator is pretty good in battle box games; much more fun than the Destroyer anyway. We played on a plain table without any terrain and only a few painted models, but I'm planning on getting my hands on some nicer terrain, hopefully that will make it more enjoyable for people.


I've also started looking at my game engine again. OK, this needs a bit of background I think. At my last job, I was spending a good number of hours a day staring at a computer monitor coding, then coming back home and spending more hours staring at a computer monitor coding. Progress had slowed and I was getting tired, so eventually I decided to try to spend my limited free time on hobbies that didn't involve staring at a computer screen. Well, not quite as much any way.

Now let me back up a bit. Several years ago, I bought a laptop. Not my first, but the first one that I bought for myself. It was pretty much a middle spec deal, but it was nice and small (for the time). I really liked it, and still do. But a few years later I needed something more powerful for some work. So I ended up buying the most powerful laptop I could locally get off-the-shelf. It was a rather large laptop that I never really liked very much, but it did everything I needed it to at the time. I kept it for work and the older laptop for personal use. Until the older laptop started overheating and shutting down, so I retired it and moved to the larger one exclusively.

Recently I decided to try to see if I could get some use out of the older one, so I had the insides cleaned up - which seemed to solve the overheating problem - and installed...

No, hold on, let me back up again. Microsoft sucks. I've tried not to hate them, but lately they've really, really been getting on my nerves. I'm not going to go into it right now, but I'm done. No more Microsoft products for me. I've just been given a mac at my new job, and while I can see that it has a lot of great things going for it, there's annoying differences in the basic interface that make it a little uncomfortable for me.

... and installed Ubuntu on it. After a couple of false starts, I got it working properly. And it's very nice. It has the simplicity that Windows is missing and the comfort and familiarity that I'm not getting from my Mac. So yeah, I'm thinking it's on it's way to becoming my favourite OS. I'm hoping to convert my other laptop eventually, but I can't be bothered right now.

So I've been enjoying getting to use my old laptop again; I find it's keyboard and scrollpad very comfortable, the battery life has improved under Ubuntu, and unlike my larger laptop it doesn't burn me when I try to actually use it on my lap (yeah, that one might need the dust cleaned out as well).

What was I talking about? Oh yes, my game engine. Well, after resigning from my last job, I decided to try to do some reading up on computer stuff. That didn't get very far, but it did lead to a renewed interest in my engine. Hearing about old friends releasing their own games didn't hurt. Plus, one of my friends has a PS4 and it's been a struggle for him to find local multiplayer games, so I figured there's a market there...

Here's the thing. I used to work in Visual Studio, but now I want to start working in Ubuntu, so I've been converting my engine over to work with makefiles. It's actually been fun so far, but I've found myself wanting to change a lot of things in the engine itself, which has slowed things down a lot. Plus I want to go through and integrate unit tests into everything. So right now it looks like it's going to take a lot of work to get the engine actually running at all again, but hopefully when (if) it's done it will be more modular and more portable. Which is important if I ever get to the point of actually trying to produce something that other people can play.

What about game ideas? Well, I've had a few small ones. Nothing major, just small tweaks on standard formula, but it's all stuff that sounds fun to me and hey, it's a start. I'd love to be able to start posting about my engine again on this blog, so hopefully I can build up and sustain some momentum for a while. Fingers crossed.