Fall Television Shows

It’s fall, and what does fall mean?  Football!  Yeah, but also new television shows.  I’ve been trying out a few new shows this time around.  Two in particular caught my eye a few months back and now both have at least one episode under their belt.

First is Revolution.  I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic stories.  When I saw the first trailer for the new show with the lights going out, and then dealing with the fifteen-year-later aftermath, I was very excited.  As we got closer to showtime, I started getting more nervous.  The new TV spots were showing lots of swordfighting.  Why?  Why would they do that to a science fiction show?  Still, I buried my thoughts and queued up the DVR.

We’re two episodes in to Revolution right now and the best I can say for it is that I’m not willing to give up on it yet.  It’s not the show I was hoping.  I was hoping more for a show like Jericho where the focus of the show largely was dealing with life in this post-apocalyptic world.  Instead we were met with a bit of swashbuckling sword-fighting and a teenager main character who… I just don’t find all that compelling.

The characters that the story has focused on seem pretty stock so far.  There’s the wide-eyed teen, the bad-ass male fighter, the mysterious attractive is-he-an-enemy-or-is-he-a-friend male future love interest, the villainous villain of villain-tastic proportions, etc.  The most compelling characters I find in the story are the British woman and the geek guy who are shoved in the background following the others around.  Why do I find them compelling?  They actually feel a bit more real.  The woman carries around an iPhone with her even though it doesn’t work anymore because it’s the only device that holds pictures of her children in it.  She has no physical pictures to hold on to, and it’s a way to hold on to her past.  The geek guy mentioned being married and talked about the job he had with a computer company in the past.  They’re normal people coping in a world they did not grow up in.  It’s far more interesting to me than the rest of the folks.

With the second episode they did introduce something I like a bit more.  They had brief flashbacks in the first episode but fleshed it out a bit more in the second episode.  We get to see people dealing with the immediate aftermath of the world going to hell.

There are enough mysteries out there to keep me tuning in, at least for the time being, but unless the story improves over the next few episodes I expect it’ll fall off my list of shows.

The other show I was looking forward to, though less-so, was Last Resort.  The premier episode hit last night and good lord did they pack in a lot.  We went from a standard day on a nuclear submarine to full-scale nuclear war in less than an hour.  Then the submarine took over an island.  It actually works better than it sounds.  I got the impression as I was watching that the writers were saying, “Look, we know this is a ridiculous premise.  Just let us rush through the set-up and let us start telling this tale of government conspiracy, military drama, and all the rest.

In a single episode, this show has already managed to portray far more compelling characters than I saw in Revolution.  The captain of the boat is a philosophical, soft-spoken but sincere career submarineman.  And by the end of it, I was questioning just how crazy he really was and what he would be willing to do.  There was the Admiral stateside who I immediately expected would be a villain as soon as I saw him, but turned out that he might become one of the biggest allies in the government they have.

And there are plenty of plots and subplots to uncover.  The Marines that they picked up – what was their mission?  What’s happening with the government in the US?  Who has subverted the communication to the sub and tried to get them to bomb Pakistan?  All in all a fun ride and I’m looking forward to the next episode.

My wife and I also started going through a couple other older shows.  She had already seen it, but watched the first season of Once Upon a Time.  I enjoyed it immensely and am looking forward to the next season starting up soon.  We also started watching Dexter’s first season.  We’re only a few episodes in so far.  I’m generally not a fan of procedurals, so I don’t know how long this show will stick with me, but it is pretty interesting.  That Dexter guy is pretty creepy.

On deck for us once we finish off Dexter’s first season is the first season of American Horror Story and Season 7 of Supernatural.

Bringing the Thunder

Misaki hit the table for me for the first time last night.  My crew selection was limited by the models I had painted, which was less limiting than I expected it would be.  The only real limitations I ended up with was that I had no Ototo available, and I had only one Torakage.  I had Archers, Brothers, Shang, Yamaziko and a Torakage ready to roll alongside Misaki herself.

First, I have to say I’m not a huge fan of the models.  Misaki’s not quite as bad as I thought she would be, but she’s still pretty bad.  Shang, for a 30mm HT1 model, is quite a bit larger than he should be.  He’s leaning off the base nearly everywhere, and he’s taller than almost every other model I have in the crew.  Ototo I’m not as disappointed with as I expected to be, but he’s a little ridiculous leaping in the air as he hammers something.  One of the Torakage, the one with the long knives down his arms, looks fantastic.  The other two I don’t really like.  At least the Archers look good.

But I don’t play for the looks of the models as much as whether they’re fun on the field.  Misaki looks like she could threaten Lady J, the Viktorias, and Lilith for melee master of the game.  She’s got a few fantastic abilities stacked in her favor: four AP with which she can attack, Decapitate, Diving Assault, and You’re Mine.  After that she’s got Pilfer and Shadow to help her out.  She’s got a fantastic DF/WP combination of 7/7, has Bulletproof +2, and 10 wounds.  She’s got good CB and she’s got a nice damage progression (the only “bad” thing she has is that her minimum damage is only 2).

So how did the games go?

My first game was facing Hoffman played by Skill-less Brian.  He’s been trying to use Hoffman to get better with him, and this was his first time facing Misaki.  Hoffman hitched a ride up with a Peacekeeper, and Misaki Diving Assaulted the guy and killed him.

Rather than play out the game, we re-racked and tried a new match, this time with him being more conservative and using the damage train with the Guardian.  The game was much more interesting.

My Archers led my army, putting Slow on his constructs, but he managed to send the Warden after them and kill one of them.  Fortunately it was the one he had not taken Kill Protégé on, and Yamaziko helped shield him and heal him back up.  Meanwhile Misaki used Diving Assault to get into range of the Guardian, Peacekeeper, and Hoffman.  She used Decapitate on the Guardian straight away and then started working on Hoffman.  Meanwhile, my remaining Archer ran for the hills as Yamaziko moved in to lend a hand where she could.  She died to the Brutal Effigy while Shang died to the Warden (though he nearly killed it.

My Torakage popped up past the battle and ran for the Stake a Claim / Breakthrough schemes I had set while Misaki managed to kill off Hoffman, though she was knocked down to below half and lost all her stones defending against the Peacekeeper and Hoffman’s exploding discharges.  Finally Misaki killed off the Warden and Hunter and held the Brutal Effigy and Peacekeeper at bay as the game ended.  She managed to take the win that time too.

The third time I played, I brought a 25 stone list against Slaz and aRamos (you know how I feel about that guy).  I took Yamaziko, Torakage, and two Archers against the aRamos machine.

The game started out well for me.  My Archers were picking off his models and the Torakage was jumping them in and out of trouble.  On turn two, Misaki dove into Johan and killed him off.  I was a few inches out of getting at Ramos before he manifested.  Ramos manifested the next turn and it would be the last time I got initiative until the end of the game.  aRamos and Misaki went back and forth for a while, but aRamos managed to kill her off.  Meanwhile, one of my Archers died but the other and Yamaziko killed off all the remaining minions leaving aRamos alone.  He tried to summon new models but every time he did, either Yamaziko or the Archer would kill them off before they could do much.  The Archer kept aRamos slow, but couldn’t do much damage to him.  Finally by the end of the game we settled on a 2-2 tie as we both got Kill Protégé and nothing else.

After the games, Bill was asking me a few questions about Misaki to see what I thought.  He asked if, with everything she could do, I ever felt Misaki didn’t have enough AP.  I replied that I’d always take more AP, but that almost every turn she was doing something pretty similar: Diving Assault in, attack, attack.  Or attack, attack, attack, attack.  Once she mixed it up by using Pilfer before attacking to get a stone to use on the attack.  But overall, I never felt like I had more to do with her that I didn’t get to do, except attack more things.

Misaki’s a brutal master.  I’d be interested to have her face off against a Lilith or Lady Justice to see how she settles in that kind of match.  I think given the low wounds of the Vikis and the high speed of Misaki, she might have an advantage, but really it probably comes down to who gets their long-ranged kill shot off first.  I think Misaki’s going to vault up near the top of the 10 Thunders masters and be a challenge to figure out a solid way to defend against an assassination run when she’s on the table.

L5R Roleplaing Launches

Monday we finally got back into the swing of roleplaying after a few month break since the end of our Scion game.  I host a group of five players who come out to try out new stories.  I try to keep the scope of them small and inevitably fail at every turn.

This time around we are going to be playing Legend of the Five Rings.  Three of my players know the world well and the other two are pretty new to it.  Personally, I know little of the new storylines, but I used to love playing in the old stories back in the day.  When 2E, d20, and 3E were out for Legend of the Five Rings, I really did not like the system that much.  Second changed needlessly.  There’s nothing more to be said about d20 other than the fact it was d20 which doesn’t fit the feel of Rokugan I like to go for.  Third edition was a step back in the right direction, but was far too complicated.  Fourth was the best edition I’ve seen since the original one, taking a lot of cues from what made the first edition work and adding in the few changes I really liked from other editions.  So far in reading through it, the only thing I dislike about it is the dueling system, which was better in first edition.  As such I’ll be using the old version for my game for that particular piece.

Legend of the Five Rings also launches a first for our gaming group: the first time I have run a game for them where I knew the rules better than they do.  My past two games, Alpha/Omega and Scion, ended up with my players telling me how the game worked while I ran the story.  This time I have a lot more experience roleplaying in this world and with this system than they do.  As a GM, it’s a liberating experience.  I no longer feel like my players are pulling one over on me, or are going to get the better of me based on knowing the rules more than I do.  I can match what they do without having to rely on them telling me how to do it.

So for the story I’m starting everyone out in the time period I know best: pre-Scorpion Clan Coup.  The characters are all coming from the Crane clan and make quite an eclectic group.  I have a courtier-turned-bushi when he was pulled out of training to be a courtier at the behest of a powerful Crane samurai for unknown reasons.  I have a Mantis who was hostaged to the Crane after a failed war almost a decade prior who now finds himself without a true home in either place.  I have his yojimbo, a peasant who did the nigh-impossible of being raised from peasantry to the samurai caste and is finding it far different than the idealistic way he used to see it.  I have a fourth, yet unknown character (one of my players was called into work at the last minute and missed the session).  And I have a duelist/philosopher whose family all committed seppuku to erase a stain they had caused, and the stain itself has been stricken from all records.  She was spared as her influential sensei spoke for her and now wonders what happened to her family.

The story starts with the characters all sent to Toshi Ranbo to meet with a Dragon delegation.  The Crane and Lion are at war, and it is heating up.  The Crane have been trying to economically strangle the Lion by imposing prohibitive tariffs on Lion goods traveling through their lands.  The Dragon had a poor harvest the previous year and a harsh winter, and now are within months of having the peasantry starve.  They need food, and the Lion have a surplus to sell.  The influx of koku would give the Lion an edge in the war.  The Crane have no food of their own to part with, at least not in the quantity that the Dragon need.  If the Dragon do not get their food from the Lion, they may well enter the war on the side of the Lion to force the Crane to let the food cross their borders.

Going from a much more action/adventure type game to a high political one is making a nice change.  Already one of the characters has had some minor dealings with a Scorpion courtier, another has managed to gather some potential minor blackmail material on a few people in the court, and a third has gotten into a sparring match and impressed the general of the Crane military in the city.

In the end, it’s great to be back in roleplaying again.  Looking forward to where the story takes us.

My Warmachine Weekend and Thoughts on Malifaux

At Gencon I found myself at a strange place.  I am certainly a huge fan of Wyrd, but was disappointed with their releases.  Expecting a fair chunk more given the initial estimates of 70-80% of their line, I was hoping for more than just Jakob to play with.

At the same time, Privateer Press had some very interesting products.  I hadn’t been following them closely, so I didn’t know much of what would be out.  I knew Level 7 would be there, as would the IK RPG.  I managed to get the former, and got to play the latter.

As a result of my waning interest in Wyrd’s products, and my being impressed with Privateer Press’s, I started thinking I wanted to play some more Warmachine.  Conveniently, our local Press Ganger was running an event this past weekend for smaller-scale Warmachine armies (35 points) to just come to the store and play a lot.  I dusted off my Cygnar and brought it out to the table.

 

I managed to get three games in, each one quite different from the others.  I’m not going to go through a blow-by-blow of the games (mostly because I don’t know the rules well enough to know what was happening) but I’ll give some overall general impressions.

The first thing I noticed when pulling out a list in my first game was that the game is a lot bigger than I remember it.  I haven’t played the game really since back in MK1 days.  I used to have a hard time putting together a list because I found myself having to cut and get my list down under the points.  Now I found myself tossing in more stuff because I had plenty of space in my list size.

Another thing I quickly learned was that I knew very little about some basic rules.  Unit cohesion, squad leaders, morale checks all worked a bit differently than before.  It wasn’t really a big deal – my opponents were pretty open to helping me out with my gaps in knowledge, but I could tell just how much my decisions were hampered by things I didn’t know.

Two of my games ended very similarly.  In one of them, my opponent popped his feat, rushed his models through my army without me being able to stop him, and plowed into my caster.  Luck was on my side and I managed to survive with one wound remaining, but I wasn’t able to turn the tables on him the next turn and he finished me off.  The other game, I had my wall of jacks in between me and my opponent, but he managed to get his warlock jumping over my jacks, engaged with my caster, and took me from full-to-dead in one hit, then moved back to safety to face other opponents.

Both of the games were good lessons, reminding me how little I knew about the game anymore.  My brain is currently set to a Malifaux-style of play rather than a Warmachine style of play.  I found myself looking at the board and trying to control area on the board rather than looking directly for an assassination run.  I got caught flat-footed and died both times due to it.

My other game went a bit differently.  I found myself on the wrong side of a very good opponent who spent the game locking me down but keeping me alive so he could win the game and get the most objective points for the day’s event.  I learned a bit there, and managed to nearly deliver a killing blow earlier on in the game (one wound short, just like had been done to me), but pretty quickly he had me in a position where I could not do anything back.

At the end of the day, I had to look back at my games and consider what my plan was with Warmachine.  I recognize that most of my failings came from not knowing the rules and models, neither the ones I was playing with nor the ones I was playing against.  I came to the question of whether I would want to spend the time filling in those gaps.

I would enjoy continuing Warmachine, I don’t doubt.  I would go through a period of painful defeats while I learned what things did on the board, but I don’t doubt I would end up a pretty good Warmachine player once more.

But I have already spent the time learning the same from Malifaux, a game I already do enjoy.

An interesting point I found was that what I hear as complaints about Malifaux – that there are abilities that are too powerful or the game is too broken – were things I could see someone else saying about Warmachine having walked away with my experiences.  In all three games, a warcaster/warlock was killed or knocked down to 1 life from full in a single round.  In one of the games, I was effectively locked down to the point where the last half-hour of the game felt as frustrating as I’m sure some early Malifaux games feel for others.

What I came away with was that there was very little difference between the two games in that area.  Both games have super-powered abilities and models.  That’s kinda the point of them.  It’s the other areas that you have to determine which of the two you favor.

Warmachine is based around setting up full turns of all your models working together.  It has a single prize that you need to keep your eye on.  The groups are larger and terrain is less important.

Malifaux requires you to spend more time reacting to the changing battle since your opponent almost always has a chance to react to your combinations.  You have to keep track of a half dozen different objectives throughout the game.  There are fewer models on the table.

Both require an investment of time and patience to learn to play well.  Both are great games.

I’ve spent the time learning Malifaux, and I still enjoy it.  I prefer the size and objectives of Malifaux to those of Warmachine.  My brief weekend with Warmachine was fun, but I’m ready to put it back on the shelf and re-devote myself to Malifaux.