Gamer Resolutions Revisited

At the beginning of the year, I set forth a few Gamer Resolutions for the year. We're closing in on the end of the year, so I figured I'd see how I did.

My first goal was to run a roleplaying game I had started the previous year, Grimm, through to its conclusion. I have a tendency to have grand plans for my games and then not see them through to conclusion, leaving half-finished storylines and the like. I've been trying to get better at it. Actually, I'm on a roll for finishing out games now. And Grimm was successfully finished. I tried to keep the story small and mapped out from beginning to end while still allowing myself the opportunity to tie together loose strands as I go. I tend to be a more improv GM so it was hard to stay fixed to a course, but that certainly did help. I finally got everything wrapped together as the characters slowly figured out how their imagination in Grimm was changing the real world, and that there were a group of people in the real world that were trying to harness that imagination. A member of that group had been part of an experiment that had failed and left him in a coma, only his imagination had been split apart from him and he was running around in all the Grimm worlds, destroying everything in his anger. The characters went to Oz, overthrew the Wicked Witch who had tried to control the reckless imagination guy, and then fought off his army and saved Grimm. They were finally able to return home and, understanding better their powers, remade the world to put it back the way it should be. A very cool ending to a story that was not without its problems.

I also wanted to run my play-by-post roleplaying game, Rembaldi, for at least six months out of the year. I started out strong, hitting four months in a row, but work, being laid off, finding a new job, and then working to keep that new job basically killed my chances at Rembaldi continuing strong for the year. It's my on-again-off-again story that I hope will some day be resolved. I have so many of the final reveals already in mind and I'd just love to see the story get there. I calculate I'm probably 2/3's of the way through telling it. I've been running it for almost 10 years. So I failed at this one.

My third goal was to sell either my Cygnar or Legion, if not both. I managed to sell my Legion to Bill from the Gamer's Lounge so that he could get started with his Warmachine habit. I gave him a great deal on it, mostly because I just wanted to move it out of my house. I think I'm going to hold on to my Cygnar at this point unless someone gives me an offer - Dan's been getting back into the game, and I don't know if I'll give it a swing again at any point. But still, sold my Legion, so made that goal.

My fourth goal was to play at most three miniatures games at any given time. I hit this one easily, playing Malifaux all year and then mixing in a little bit of Pulp City at one point, and some Hell Dorado at another, neither overlapping. I managed to keep my miniatures habit under control here - not too bad!

My last goal was to buy no more than 4 video games over the course of the year. Again, made that one easily, buying only Fallout 3: New Vegas, Dawn of War: Chaos Rising and Skyrim all year. I could still buy another, but no need. Skyrim's kept me nice and cozy. Next year's got Mass Effect 3 coming out, and who knows what else on the horizon.

So four out of five, not that bad. I am really bummed about the one I missed - I figured with starting out strong in the year I'd have no trouble hitting it, but that last month has just been very elusive.

I guess I'll start thinking of some new ones. Some of these might come back in some form, others might just drop away. I don't feel like I'm in danger of grabbing a ton of miniatures games next year like I thought I would this year. I haven't been as big into video games either. I do still need encouragement to keep my roleplaying games going - I love running them but I know my tendency to chase the next story I have in mind. Who knows - we'll see how next year's goals shape up.

Red Retired

Today marked the end of Red's career in Skyrim. Dragon attacks were becoming more and more rampant and I decided it was time to do something about it. Whiterun had been built to hold a dragon, so it was there that I started my journey to defeat the evil world-ender black dragon. The journey took me far and wide, trying to broker a truce between the two armies long enough to handle the dragon situation. While I was sitting in the council, I realized that there would be no lasting peace in the lands until I did something about it.

Once I returned to these lands after defeating Aldrun, I went to Solitude and joined the army. Over less than 24 hours, I put Stormcloak after Stormcloak to the sword, liberating many forts with the help of my trusty horse, the only friend I had who joined me.

Honestly, the army at my back was kinda superfluous. They just succeeded in getting in the way of my sword from time to time while I was killing Stormcloaks.



With the forts liberated, Windhelm sacked, and the leader of the rebels dead by my hand, I retired from my life in the army.

I tried a few more minor quests, trying to help out some people I had met along my journey, but they all left me feeling hollow. Nothing I was to accomplish in the future would ever stand up to what I had already done. I finally decided it was time to get married and retire from adventuring altogether.

I went to the town that I had spent my whole early career defending - Riverwood. There I went to the merchant and his sister who I had helped earlier. The merchant didn't want to marry me, but his sister did, so we set a date and headed off to the chapel to get married.

I forgot about the dress code and showed up fully dressed in my armor.



From there, my wife and I moved to Solitude where my house was. I hung up my sword, set my armor aside, and lived out my days in peace.

Lessons from Skyrim

It's been a while since I've written about Red, my warrior-turned-sneaky-git-turned-assassin-turned-blacksmith-and-enchanter. She's been traveling around Skyrim killing dragons, saving people, killing people, etc. I swear, this is one f-ed up land. Here are a few things I've learned:

ON MEETING NEW PEOPLE
When I see someone in the distance, unless I'm in a city, my instinct is to drop down, sneak up, and either shoot them with a bow or, if I'm feeling gutsy, slit their throat with a knife. What ever happened to... I don't know... talking to people you just met?

I guess it comes down to learning. Early on in my career, I tried talking to people, but it turned out they were more interested in killing me. I'd walk into a set of ruins, see someone practicing with a sword and try to shout out, "Hey, sorry to interrupt. Would you happen to know where the closest merchants are to here?" And they'd say, "Hurry up and die so I can count your coin!" And I'd say, "Whoa, whoa, it's not that kind of day. We don't need to get into this violent intercourse!" And they'd reply with "You're easier to rob when you're dead!" By this point, all their friends would be joining in, shooting me with their bows, casting black magic on me, and stabbing me with their swords. I'd sigh, take a hint, and kill them all.

It became fairly predictable, so now my first instinct is to shoot someone as soon as I see them. Only every 20th time or so do I make a mistake, but I figure if I'm killing 19 evil people for every one good person, I'm still coming out ahead, right?




ON THE HOUSING MARKET
So anyway, as my career has progressed, I found myself needing someplace to live. I had two barrels in Riverwood that I used to stash all my stuff (I'm quite glad none of the people who lived there stole it all) but that wasn't enough. Soon I found a nice cave with a tanning station, a cooking fire, a sharpening grindstone, and a ton of barrels. So I walked in and asked politely if I could move in. I was rebuked, so rather than seek the next domestic option, I killed the previous owners. I'm glad the real housing market's not like that. Soon enough, I was moved in and living large. Someone even came in and cleared out all the bodies for me one day. Very polite.

Only soon I found out that if I stayed in the cave too long, someone would steal all my stuff. Well crap, I didn't want that to happen. So I explored my options and decided that Solitude was the city for me. I performed a few tasks, and was given permission to purchase a house. I did so, then went and checked it out. It was sparse. So I ditched all of my gear in a barrel the house (I needed as much room to carry stuff from cave to house as I could), went back to purchase some upgrades, then started the long task of carrying all my stuff from my cave to my house.

I got quite a few comments from people about running around naked and why I should not do that. I ignored them. If I put on my armor, it was one less Dragon Bone I could carry each trip!

So I finally got everything moved in a couple hours and went to the barrel to get my stuff. Only the barrel was gone and had been replaced with a houseplant! I lost all of my best armor and weaponry. Fortunately, I had been spending time learning to Smith and Enchant, and managed to recreate my entire wardrobe.


ON BUILDING A STRONG RESUME
Now finally decked out and having my new house, I embarked on several career paths. I visited the mage's college where I continued my education despite the fact that I completed nearly every task they gave me while using only a sword and shield. Evidently they didn't check my work. They just wanted results. So when they saw they re-dead undead guy, they gave me an "A" for Destruction Magic Use rather than looking at him and realizing there were sword cuts all over him and not a sign of magical fire. Through a series of what I consider colossal blunders in their applicant screening process, I managed to rise the ranks until finally I was chosen to be archmage.

Decked out in some new threads (which I promptly put on a mannequin in my home and redonned my dragonscale armor), I decided to explore other options. I joined the Companions, a group of fighters, and due to an unfortunate mishap that claimed the life of their leader, I was given the role of being the new leader with less than a week's membership under my belt.

Next I joined both the theives' and assassin's guilds. It's harder to accomplish these two at the same time because they have very different methods. The assassins want me to kill their targets and the thieves want me to keep their targets alive to be exploited yet again. It leads to rather amusing conversations like one I had at the thieves' guild a few days ago:

THIEVES' GUILD LEADER: "So you need to go and find this guy. He's betraying us!"
RED: "Betraying us? I'll slit his throat for that!"
THIEVES' GUILD LEADER: "Whoa, simmer down there, Red. We don't want to kill him. He'll still be useful later."
RED: "Oh, right."

I'm also evidently learning to become a cannibal, a treasure hunter and a pirate-killer on the side. I checked back over my completed quests yesterday and I'm quite versatile.

Until I realize that each of those quests accounts for, on average, ten people dead. Then I realize I'm a sociopath.




ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FRIENDS
Having selected, primarily, the assassin track, I have found my jobs are much easier when I'm doing them alone. But in the past few days, my circle of friends has expanded from zero to three.

First, I befriended an undead ghost. Well, maybe "befriended" is too strong a word. I achieved some task and was given the ability to summon him once a day. So really, this guy has no choice but to be my friend. I think he likes me, but he's usually kinda freaky. If I'm the silent sociopath, he's the loud and bragging one.

On the plus side, he makes my looting much easier. I mean, I have no reason to loot anymore - I have more food, ingredients, magical weapons, potions, scrolls, wooden bowls, armor, gems and money than I can possibly need in a lifetime, but I can't help put steal every potato and set of butterfly wings I can find. So when I summon my new friend, he'll go running head-first into a fight while I wander around and pick up apples and grilled leeks until he's killed (again).

My second friend is a horse that came out of a black pit of tar or something. I'm a little hazy on how all this works, but now I have a black horse with red eyes. Very unnatural. I couldn't get the hang of riding a horse and was hoping honestly that its owner would take him back, but she gave him to me instead and now I'm stuck with a horse. I was unhappy until the first time a dragon appeared when I had my horse and the horse ran up and started attacking the dragon. Good on him! I mean, he was severely outclassed, but still. That's some initiative, right?

Had another occasion where I was coming up on a group of folks. I jumped off my horse and crept closer, getting a count and eye on my targets (remember, I don't talk to people first... just kill them). Only before I could get to them, I found that my horse had found them first and was engaged in combat with three bandits. Hilarious to watch!

My third friend was a little unusual. I was wandering around Solitude, headed out for some quests, and then came back to my house and there was a woman sitting in my chair. "You get lost?" she asked demandingly. I was freaked - what was this woman doing in my house?! But then I remembered - my Jarl told me she was assigning me a Housecarl because I was the new Thane (add that to my resume). Now she hangs around my house all day in her armor. I think she secretly wants me to ask her if she wants to join me on a quest. Like the teenager who sits by the telephone in case it rings, she doesn't want to miss that one opportunity. So she sits in my front chair watching the door dressed and ready to go adventuring.




ON MARRIAGE
I did talk to her at one point. It was very odd - she commented on my medallion, and than said she was surprised that I wasn't already taken. I asked her if she was interested in me, and she said that of course she was, then asked if I was interested in her. I exited that embarrassing conversation right quick.

She's not the first person to hit on me. The archer in the Companions also hit on me and asked me to marry her.

Laura (my real-life wife) was watching the game at that point and thought it was hilarious how only women seemed to want my character, who was also a woman. We went back through some of the other characters in the game we had met and decided immediately on who we wanted to marry:

J'zargo.

I mean, that man is the best! He's funny, confident. As J'zargo says, there is much for J'zargo to be confident about. Magical prowess, charm. He's got it all. He is a cat, which would be a little odd with the copulating and the shedding, but I think we could get around that with an open mind.

So I went off to the mages' college to talk to J'zargo. I had already done a lot to help him in the past (reading scrolls to undead and getting burned in the process), and he had joined me several times when dragons attacked the college. Plus I was his superior officer, so I had the whole sexual harassment angle I could pull too. I found him, cornered him, and started talking. "Ah, you are a woman to warm the heart of J'zargo in this cold place," he said. Great intro, right? Only he never gave me the chance to ask him to marry me. J'zargo's too much to be a one-lady man, I guess.

McMourning Faces Down the Dreamer

After the end of the Winter League, I pulled out some non-Neverborn to play. I had just packed up some of my new Ressers and was ready to roll. Dixon challenged me to a game and I decided to go with my favorite Resser master: McMourning.

McMourning, Zombie Chihuahua, Canine Remains x2, Bette, Sebastian, Crooked Men x2, 8 Stones
Strategy: Slaughter
Schemes: Kill Protégé (Coppelius), Assassinate

Dreamer, Daydreams x2, Lelu, Lilitu, Coppelius, 8 Stones
Strategy: Claim Jump
Schemes: Bump in the Night, Eye for an Eye


TURN ONE – DREAMER INITIATIVE
Since most of our first turn was solo setting up for our crews, I’ll tell them separately.

Dixon started with all his Nightmares on the table. He began with Coppelius, having him steal an Eye from Lelu, use it to summon an Alp, and then steal another Eye from Lilitu. Both of the twins took 2 wounds and ended up with two poison on them. Lelu activated, took two wounds from Poison and healed two wounds from Regenerate, healing himself and Lilitu. He took a Defensive Stance. Lilitu took a Defensive Stance after taking two wounds from Poison as well, and one of the Daydreams buried the twins and Coppelius. The Dreamer and both Daydreams moved up the table a little, preparing for the next turn.

Meanwhile, I had both of my Canine Remains take Defensive Stances and move forward. McMourning tossed his knife at one of the dogs for a Body Part, then killed that dog for three more. His last action killed the second dog to give him a total of 7 body parts to play with starting the second turn. My Chihuahua moved up and both Crooked Men moved up to flank the whole block. I was taking position on his Claim Jump to make him come to me.


TURN TWO – DREAMER INITIATIVE
Dixon linked all three of his models, started with a Daydream, and jumped up the table. The Daydream summoned Chompy. Chompy killed one of my Crooked Men in two hits, then hit Sebastian once, triggering All Done bringing the Dreamer back up. The Dreamer brought up all his friends putting the twins, Coppelius and the Alp on the table, then gave them all Terrifying. Finally, the second Daydream completed the Companion chain by summoning Lord Chompy Bits in the backfield and then putting him away.

I went ahead and companioned the Chihuahua and McMourning. The Chihuahua channeled Dissection at Lelu, cheating in a 13 and then stoning to put the spell out of reach. Lelu failed the resist and on my (+) flip for damage, I flipped a Severe, dealing 10 damage to Lelu. McMourning activated next and passed his Terrifying checks, moved up on Coppelius, ate a Body Part to become fast, and Channeled Dissection on Coppelius. I wanted to Channel for the (+) damage flip so I’d be all but assured a straight flip. Sure enough, I got the straight flip using a Stone to push the result high, then cheated in a Severe to one-shot Coppelius too.

The Alp and Lilitu combined to kill off Sebastian. I didn’t put Bette into play yet because I lacked the 10 to pull her back if need be, and Lilitu still had one more action to go.


TURN THREE – MCMOURNING INITIATIVE
I started with the Chihuahua and McMourning again, having the Chihuahua try to kill off Lilitu but he wasn’t able to do enough wounds. After that he kicked the body parts he had over to McMourning. McMourning slapped the Alp killing it and healing himself back to full after taking wounds for killing Coppelius. Finally he used the body parts to give Chompy something tempting to kill: he summoned a Rouge Necromancy next to Lilitu. The Daydreams and Dreamer activated again. A Daydream moved up and summoned Chompy, then buried him. The Dreamer tagged the Rouge Necromancy with a (-) flip against Nightmares and brought Chompy into play. Chompy wrecked the Rouge Necromancy, but in his attacks, did not manage to trigger All Done. Bette popped up from the Rouge Necromancy’s death. Trying to get away, the last Daydream moved forward and pulled Chompy 4” towards him, then buried him for the Dreamer. Bette activated and Flurried Lilitu, killing her. My Crooked Man focused a Cave In and I cheated a 13 to hit, dealing moderate damage, spilling onto the second Daydream. Both were dead.


TURN FOUR – MCMOURNING INITIATIVE
I started with my Crooked Man, focusing another attack on the Dreamer with Cave In. I managed to hit, but did only 2 wounds. Dixon looked over the board and called it there – getting Lord Chompy Bits up to kill all my models before they managed to kill him was going to be all but impossible, and with a healthy lead on him in Slaughter and sitting on his objective, things weren’t looking promising. He couldn’t get Eye for an Eye without killing my minions (and I was prepping to summon more), though Bump in the Night was probably if he went after the Crooked Man and Chihuahua. But if he left Chompy out, McMourning could finish him, and if he left the Dreamer out, he would die at the next hit.


We talked after the game - both of us were a bit rusty with our crews though it seemed Dixon had been away from the Dreamer longer than I'd been away from McMourning. The biggest mistake he made, I said, was neglecting the All Done trigger. It's my number one rule playing the Dreamer - don't forget to go for All Done. If the choice is between leaving your enemy with 2 life left by using All Done, or killing him but leaving Chompy on the table, make sure you take the All Done. I fail at that piece of advice myself from time to time, and I always regret it in the long run.

This was the first game I had used Dissection really well. I've rarely tried it before, but seeing Coppelius and Lelu lined up in position, and me holding three Severe cards in my hand, I felt like I'd never get a better opportunity.

Overall, a great, fun, fast-paced game. With each of us losing two models by turn two, I knew this was going to be a bloody match.

Victory!

Had the final weekend of the league over the last weekend. I was supposed to be in New York at the time, but due to a rash of illnesses where I believe I was the only person out of the six who would be involved who was not ill or just recently recovering from being ill, we postponed the trip. That left me with an open Saturday.

So after some Skyrim playing (I'm now the head of the Mages' Guild despite not being a mage, and the head of the Champions despite not really being much of a fighter... at least now I'm working my way up the ranks of the assassins and theives... oh, and now I own a house and don't just live in a cave anymore), I headed out to Huzzah for the last day of playing. Got in two last games, one against Zee and another against Bill. Good games, both of them, and I pulled them both out. Against Zee I was fighting Perdita and managed to hold him off from reaching his objectives and the second one I swapped lists with Bill and luckily the game went to turn 7 and a 3-4 loss turned into a 5-4 victory.

Points were tallied and in the end, I took best Neverborn and Overachiever for the second straight time. I got in far fewer games this time around than I did last time, but luckily so did most other players. Bill took the best Archanist, Dan got the best Resser (his favorite word: Default!), Skill-less Brian took the Guild, and another player took our Outcasts (sorry, I don't remember the name). Zee took home Good Ol' College Try, a nice reward for our most enthusiastic new player.

Next league I'll try to time things better so I'm ready to move off of Neverborn and try something different. Maybe by then I'll have the last two Resser boxes ready to go too.

Two More Malifaux Games

We’re winding down to the end of the winter league. I have to say, I’m looking forward to it finishing. Not because I did not enjoy it – on the contrary I had a great time getting back to my Neverborn. But after six weeks, I’m actually finding that I’m itching to play some Ressers and even the Vikis again.

I got in two games last night against two locals. By the time I had arrived at the store, there was only one player without a game going. So I challenged Second Generation Awesome Dan to a match and we set up our game. I had been told that I sound arrogant when I ask my opponent who they would want to or not want to face, so instead I told Dan that it did not matter who I played – that he had no chance anyway – and who would he want to lose to or not lose to. Some of the players in the store were satisfied with my new message. Dan refused to restrict my choices.


GAME ONE VS SECOND GENERATION AWESOME DAN, 30 Stones

Skill-less Brian had been talking about a Grow List in emails earlier in the day and it reminded me that I hadn’t played one in a while. Later someone in my email conversations mentioned the Dreamer, and I decided I wanted to play him too. So my goal of the evening was to play one game of each. I decided to start with a Lilith grow list.

I know a lot of other people have been saying the Grow list works better with Zoraida. She does have some nice benefits – Obey to get more bang out of your models helps, and helping them get the extra actions to grow and move is a nice boon. But I’m still a fan of bringing Lilith to the table in a grow list. In my experience, a couple Matures are really nice, but they’ll drop before they take everything down, and Liilith is the perfect clean-up tool at that point. By herself, Zoraida’s a bit harder to finish games, but Lilith’s got the speed and melee power to put people in their place if need be.

Lilith, Primordial Magic, Nekima, Terror Tot x3, Desperate Merc x2, 6 stones
Strategy: Reconnoiter (not a great list for it, but I didn’t care)
Schemes: Bodyguard, Stake a Claim

Seamus w/ Avatar, Molly, Belle x2, Sybelle, Necrotic Machine (on Molly), 7 stones
Strategy: Consolidate Power
Schemes: Breakthrough, Kill Protégé (Nekima)

TURN ONE – SEAMUS INITIATIVE
This turn saw very little action yet, but saw some Belles trying to mess with my plan. One of them moved up and Lured a Desperate Merc away from my lines. The Merc walked back towards her death, only to be Lured again by a the second Belle. I managed to get both Mercs killed and one Tot to a Mature and another to a Younger by the end of the first turn. Lilith put up a forest to block LOS to my army while it was prepping. Seamus put up Face of Fear for his manifest requirements.

TURN TWO – SEAMUS INITIATIVE
One of the Belles moved around the forest (when they activate near Molly and Seamus, those things can truck it!) and lured my Mature towards his doom. I activated Lilith and used Transposition to swap a Belle with the Tot, then killed the Belle, grabbing a blood token. Seamus put up Face of Fear again, completing one requirement, then put up No Escape on my Tot. Nekima gave my Younger and Tot an extra Mask on Combat, and then pulled another blood. Sybelle ran around the far side of the board by herself, trying to get to breakthrough. My Tot moved back, giving Seamus the option to charge it. With another Belle out there, he was going to trigger No Escape no matter what, and this way I could force him to charge towards my lines and hopefully get out in the open. He charged, got his trigger, but I ditched two cards to stay alive. No matter – Avatar Seamus was ready to come play. My tot used its second action to attack Seamus, hitting with an automatic Flay, taking 3 wounds off him. The other Belle lured Seamus back out of my lines and my Younger turned into a Mature.

TURN THREE – LILITH INITIATIVE
I think I won initiative here, but I can’t remember. One of my Matures charged Seamus. I wanted to do as much damage to the guy as I could before he manifested. Run him out of stones or cards or something to minimize the damage. I managed to hit twice, sapping stones from him to prevent wounds, and in the end he took 4 more damage putting him 7 down. I expected aSeamus to come play, but forgot about the Necrotic Machine. It licked its lips, moved up on the Mature, and sacrificed itself to kill him. Oops. My other Mature charged in and knocked Seamus down even more, running him completely out of stones. Finally aSeamus came to play. He dropped his WP to increase his Anathema, then pounded the Mature once for 3 wounds. Lilith killed off the second Belle, and Nekima started going after Sybelle. Molly tossed her damage spell at the Mature but I cheated to prevent damage.

TURN FOUR – aSEAMUS INITIATIVE
I really wanted to win this one, but he flipped high enough to discourage me. aSeamus started. I had a hand with a 13 and two 11s, so I was feeling good, especially since he had no stones. If I could keep the Mature alive, I could probably kill aSeamus. Just needed to stop one hit. Sure enough, three swings later, the Mature was alive with two wounds left. He activated and flipped a 12 to bypass the 17 Anathema at that point (I still had an 11 in hand in case I needed it) and then ripped apart aSeamus. Molly, upset, blasted the Mature to death and created a new Necrotic Machine to go after Nekima. Nekima went after Sybelle, cutting her wounds down but not killing her, and Lilith moved in on Molly and my one attack scored a hit and I cheated the 11 for Severe damage.

TURN FIVE – LILITH INITIATIVE
The Necrotic Machine was close enough to Nekima that if the girl went after Sybelle and didn’t finish her off, there was a chance of killing Nekima. Nekima activated, killed Sybelle, and then flew away. The Necrotic Machine chased her and my Primordial Magic charged it, hitting for 1 wound. Meanwhile, Lilith spent all three attacks on Molly, but Pitiful prevented one attack, she took wounds from the second dropping her to 2 left, and the third was ignored when she flipped a crow on defense and dropped two cards. She revealed Phillip’s head a bunch, but Lilith was unimpressed.

TURN SIX – LILITH INITIATIVE
Nekima moved up and finished off the Necrotic Machine, then moved back to Stake a Claim. The Primordial Magic stuck with her. Molly gave herself Terrifying, Pitiful, and Revealed Phillip a bit more. Lilith passed all her tests and started attacking. Pitiful prevented one hit, and then Dan was able to cheat in one crow and ditch two cards, then flipped his second crow and ditched his last two cards to prevent my hits.

We checked to see if the game went on another turn. I flipped a 13 and we continued.

TURN SEVEN – LILITH INITIATIVE
Finally broke through Molly’s defenses and finished of the crying girl. Nekima stuck by her Claim Jump. The Primordial Magic joined her. Because it was one of the achievements to go to 8 turns, we flipped to see if the game went on. It went on to turn 8, but stopped before turn 9.

FINAL SCORE
Lilith 4 (0 Reconnoiter, 2 Bodyguard, 2 Stake a Claim)
aSeamus 0 (0 Contain Power, 0 Breakthrough, 0 Kill Protégé)


Before my second game, Skill-less Brian decided to have a lapse of sanity and start spouting nonsense from the rules manual. There was a brief but heated argument with a lot of finger-waggling and raised voices, then things settled down with no resolution and Brian and I racked up to get a game in.


GAME TWO VS SKILL-LESS BRIAN, 30 stones

Having just played a Grow list, I decided I’d go with the Dreamer this time. We settled on 30 stones and drew out scenarios.

Dreamer, Daydream x2, Stitched Together x2, Lelu, Lilitu, 7 stones
Strategy: Contain Power
Schemes: Kill Protégé (Nino), Bodyguard

Perdita, Nino, Santiago, Francisco, Death Marshall x2, 5 stones
Strategy: Plant Evidence
Schemes: Breakthrough, Steal Relic

Seeing him put down a bunch of models with Immune to Influence or Stubborn made me sad. I guess my Stitched Togethers were going to be less effective. Though given that I was facing a gun line, it meant their smoke would be all the more useful.

Dreamer’s one of my less used Neverborn masters, so I know I made a few mistakes this game.


TURN ONE – PERDITA INITIATIVE
This turn was all pretty basic. Perdita’s crew all moved up with a Death Marshall running around each flank to try to swing past the Dreamer. I had a Stitched put up smoke, another go to ground, and Lilitu go to ground, then buried everyone except the Dreamer and a Daydream. Brian had been dropping his models into defensive stances, so I didn’t bother with a slingshot (I’m still not a huge fan of the tactic in the first place) and instead moved up the field to prepare for turn two.


TURN TWO – DREAMER INITIATIVE
The Daydream started by moving towards the Death Marshall on the right flank, dropping Lord Chompy Bits, then burying him for the Dreamer. The Dreamer activated and summoned his Nightmares himself, triggering All My Friends. Lord Chompy Bits dropped out in front of the Death Marshall and everyone but one Daydream popped out too. The Stitched with smoke up stuck himself between the Nightmares and the gunline, blocking their sight. LCB went after the Death Marshall and did manage to kill him, though some poor flips meant it cost me two of my stones to do so. Perdita’s crew just moved up, Francisco and Perdita getting up near the middle of the field while Santiago held firm a little behind them and Nino kept further back, trying to avoid being too big a target (he didn’t companion to do all this – I just don’t remember the order it all happened). Finally, Lilitu lured Francisco towards her, hitting him for 2 wounds. I looked over the field and thought I might have the distance for Lelu to reach Perdita and start hitting her. He double moved, and I was short on reaching Perdita and too far to hit Francisco. Oh, somewhere in there he killed a Daydream and forced me to unbury my second one.


TURN THREE – PERDITA INITIATIVE
This was going to hurt. Perdita, Santiago, and Francisco all activated. Santiago shot Lelu to death while Francisco attacked Lilitu for some damage. Perdita tagged one of the Plant Evidence points, shot the last Daydream, then moved to the second activation point. Francisco attacked Lilitu, killing her off. I went with the Dreamer who moved up, then unburied Lord Chompy Bits near Perdita. Thank god for 3” reach, because that’s what had me in range to counter. Chompy had two attacks. He hit with the first triggering Flay for four wounds. Brian prevented one. He hit a second time with Onslaught, then hit again with Onslaught. Brian had only one stone, and the last hit came in. I flipped the Red Joker for Flay, and then flipped a Severe on the Damage flip, dealing her 8 wounds of the 4 she had left. Rather than risk the 1 in 54 chance of getting the Red Joker (he had no hand and had just reshuffled his deck), he held the stone for initiative later. Nino spotted Lord Chompy Bits and opened fire, hitting for a massive stroke of wounds. I prevented three of them and took only 4 over the shots. My Stitched moved into Francisco and attacked him in melee, while the other one moved in and attacked Nino in melee. The Death Marshall grabbed an objective point too.


TURN FOUR – PERDITA INITIATIVE
Nino tried to move out of range of the Stitched, but was held firm, and then attacked it but did no wounds. Lord Chompy Bits moved up between Francisco and Santiago and attacked Santiago twice. I was hoping for some Onslaught magic, but instead dropped him to 2 wounds left and turned into the Dreamer who promptly flew next to Francisco and the Stitched. All the wounds dealt were able to bring LCB back to only 1 wound on him. Nice, right? Francisco hit the Stitched for a little damage, and Santiago moved in to help, but they did not kill him. My other Stitched put some wounds on Nino. The Death Marshall got the third Plant Evidence point. He was too far for me to deal with.


TURN FIVE – DREAMER INITIATIVE
The Dreamer activated dropped the (-) flip on Santiago against Nightmares, then brought LCB back out to play. He attacked Santiago twice, killing him, and Francisco once, killing him. My Stitched started rushing towards Nino and tried to Gamble His Life to deal some wounds, but died instead. He reactivated and did it twice more, failing both times. My other Stitched just attacked Nino in melee, dropping him to one wound left. The Death Marshall was in my deployment zone now and got the fourth point. The current tally of points was 6 to me (2 Bodyguard, 0 Kill Protégé, 4 Contain Power), and 6 to him (2 Breakthrough, 0 Steal Relic, 4 Plant Evidence).


TURN SIX – DREAMER INITIATIVE
The Stitched killed Nino in melee, finally netting me my Kill Protégé, and Lord Chompy Bits rushed into my deployment zone to hold off the Breakthruogh. The Death Marshall did not want to get any closer, instead hanging further away.


FINAL SCORE
Dreamer 8 (4 Contain Power, 2 Kill Protégé, 2 Bodyguard)
Perdita 4 (4 Plant Evidence, 0 Breakthrough, 0 Steal Relic)


There's a chance these might be the last games of the league for me, or I might be able to make it out to play a couple more on Saturday. We'll see. Either way, the league's been great fun. I've played against a few new people, and got to test my mettle against some old friends. Final results and prizes will be handed out on Saturday.

Lunch hour... it's not just for eating anymore

I am lucky enough to have a job that's only a few minutes away from my house. Lately around 1:30 or so I'll roll out, head home, throw some lunch on the stove and then fire up Skyrim. Today was no exception. Also, I figured out how to take snapshots during the game, so I have a few scenes from my journeys.

I started out heading to my cave I live in. There's a bunch of dead bodies and heads on pikes out front, but I swear that's from the previous tenants. I dropped off a bunch of stuff, picked up about 15,000 gold, and headed out into the great wide world. I was close to level 41, so I wanted to pay someone to make me smarter at something. My goal was to get my Smithing or Enchanting up, but after wandering around for a while and not finding anyone who wanted to teach me, I settled for the first person I could find at the mages' place. A rather unattractive and mousy woman came up to me and practically begged me to tell her that Restoration Magic was a real type of magic (it reminded me of my college days when I tried convincing people that my major, psychology, was a real science). I rolled my eyes and told her she was special too, then paid her a bunch of money to teach me Restoration magic.



From there I headed north to the great snowy lake. It looked cold. I mean real cold. I wandered around looking for somewhere to explore and saw a boat on my map. Crazy, I've never been to a boat. I kept following it until it forced me out to sea. I wondered briefly if I would freeze to death in these waters, but evidently not. I swam and swam and soon passed the boat. Huh? I swam back and passed it again. I pondered for a minute, then dove underwater. Holy hecks, there's a huge shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean! I swam around it for a while, exploring, and then my life started draining. Uh oh. I pushed out of the boat and started swimming to the surface but got caught under a piece of ice and drowned.

I considered going back to the boat after I respawned, but decided I'd better wait until I had something to help me breathe underwater. I got to the boat so it would be on my map, and then headed out another way. I found an undead guy chilling on an ice island and put him in his place. He rewarded me with a sweet bow that has a chance of paralyzing people. Not too bad, right?

From there I headed to the next place to explore on my map. It was a cave of some kind, and I snuck in down the ice tunnel. Soon enough I found what looked to be a huge brass box.



There was a guy in the cave who talked nonsense and told me to go get him some stuff so he could figure out the box. Whatever. I'll get to it soon enough.

From there I swam to the end of the world. There was nothing there but more snow and ice. So I headed back.

After a misadventure at a huge fort where I was experimenting at blowing up undead with a friend's scrolls and got killed by two arch conjurers, I decided to go where it was warmer. I found a cave and went digging around in it. It was filled with those blind elf-looking critters. I killed a few of them and then crept into a room with two of them. They spotted me and charged me, flanking me. I took one down and then turned around to kill the other one. As soon as I delivered the killing blow, he disappeared. I couldn't find him to loot him. Until I looked on the ceiling. Crazy - he fell up and got stuck on the ceiling of the cave!



I kept heading deeper in to the caves and found some more dwarven architecture. Cool stuff! Until a dwarven mechanical guard came after me. He was quite frightening. Until I started fighting him, that is. At that point he just stopped moving and looked at me as I dismantled him. Odd, right?

I guess that's good enough for lunch. I signed off and headed back in to the office.

It's a... What Kind of Dragon is it?

It had been a long, harrowing trip. I found some dwarven shields, lots of ore, weaponry and jewelry. I was able to enchant them to get better with magic and to increase their value. Things were looking good for Red, local adventurer extraordinaire. I packed up my ill-gotten loot and headed to Riverwood to sell it. Seriously, this merchant always has money and he loves me. Good man.

I walked into Riverwood and heard the tell-tale music again. A shadow crossed overhead. I started looking around, saw the dragon, drew back my bow and laughed. What a fool, coming to MY town. Let the arrow go and it scored a direct hit, and the enemy name came up: Elder Dragon. The life bar moved down a hair. Oh S---! It saw me, chased me, and breathed on me. My life dropped by a third immediately and even after he stopped breathing on me, I kept burning. I put away my shield and pulled out my healing spells. I ducked under an awning as I heard other villagers scream in terror. No time for that – I had to heal myself back up. I peaked around and shot arrows.

After about 10 minutes, I finally grounded it in the streets and charged it. It turned its head, saw me, and breathed a massive gulf of flame on me. I cut the dragon a couple times, but before I could pull out my potion to heal myself, I was burned down.

Respawn, find the dragon again.

This time I tried to lure him down the river away from Riverwood (as I did, I realized why the Elder Dragon decided to attack - someone had gotten rid of all the dragon skeletons! He didn't know he was going to die here!) I hustled to the river and found a rock outcropping to put my back to as the dragon came by. Didn’t even slow down – just put fire on me and flew on. Damn. He circled and did it again. The rocks weren’t helping. I dove underwater to try to avoid being shot at by the breath weapon. Eventually the dragon bored of fighting me and went back to breathing on the town. I ran back to help out and the dragon landed on a building. He looked at me as I shot him and, no joke, one breath took me IMMEDIATELY from full to dead. Ouch! Crit, I guess.

Respawn again.

This time I was more cautious, using the buildings to shoot at him from afar. I’d take only a couple shots and if he ever looked like he was about to breathe on me, I ducked for cover. Finally grounded him back in the lumberyard and kept shooting from a bit away. There were villagers for the dragon to kill instead of me, so that's good, right? Eventually he was low enough that I charged him with my sword and cut him down.

Take that, Elder Dragon!