The Man They Call…. McHammish!

As you’ve read earlier on the blog, I have recently made a move to pick up some Guild models.  The model that pushed me over the edge to finally pick them up has finally been revealed: McHammish!  He’s a treasure hunting, spoiled rich kid who’s come to Malifaux because… well… who’s going to stop him?

Book Four has a lot of great models to discuss.  There may be a bit of conversation about the new way the new Neverborn/Ten Thunders master works (the totem is the really powerful one!) or the way Misaki’s new master has so many AP with which to murder, but for me, the most interesting change on the way masters work has to come from McHammish.  (I’m going to caveat that by saying I reserve the right to change my mind in the future)

Okay, so what makes him so interesting?  McHammish is on a horse!  Yeah, I know we’ve already got that with Avatar Leviticus, but aLevi can’t actually get off his horse.  McHammish has mastered the art of… dismounting!  Okay, so he can’t re-mount his horse afterwards, but give the guy a break – it took four years for someone in Malifaux to figure out how to get off a horse.

So what does he bring to the table?  Well, for one, the fastest Master Guild can get.  I mean, he’s clocking in with a walk as fast as a lot of people can charge, and his charge gets him across a third of the table.  He’s got a healthy WP and CA, and an average DF (though that increases when he dismounts).  His wounds are the highest for any single master: a whopping 13 (though those are split between the horse and himself).

He’s got two melee attacks, one designed to do damage and another that can trigger to pass out some Slow.  He’s getting harder to hit the more people he’s near, and he’s got Bearskin Armor to help keep him alive.  He’s a Ranged Expert, which is nice to go along with his Net Gun.  Whoever he hits with the gun is automatically Slow, and if you get to Severe damage, he’s Paralyzed too.  Plus, the net spills over nearby models and has a chance of making them slow too.

He can use a (0) action to help move his crew faster, pushing them towards him if they’re close enough to hear him.

He’s also got a couple spells – one to debuff a large area of the enemy crew, dropping their DF and WP, though it needs a Tome to cast.  His other spell can only be used on a Slow model and it replaces Slow with Paralyze.  Remember all those Slows you’re dropping with your attacks?  Yeah.  Nice, isn’t it?

But that’s not all!  He comes with a 6 stone cache (bwah??!!?!).  Now that’s a bit deceptive because what treasure hunter wouldn’t travel along with some treasure?  He spends his soulstone cache on at least two of a list of treasures, each with a varied cost.  Want more soulstones?  Take the weaker treasures.  But trust me, there are some real gems in there.  Drop your cache by 3 to grab Armor +2.  Give your melee swords Paired.  Get a (0) action to heal.  Gain a spell that can Reactivate certain members of your crew.  There are a couple others out there too.

Then, when he dismounts, either by having his horse run out of hit points or by using a (0) to dismount, he loses his Ranged Expertness and gains Melee Expert.  A lot of his stuff stays the same but instead of tossing out Slow as much (he still can some), he can do things like Loot the Dead, getting a special ability after killing enemy models.  He can toss out Traps (a new Guild Minion) to help Paralyze nearby models.  And finally, if he’s almost-but-not-quite-dead when he gets to activate, he can do some real damage, using a (0) to pretty much double his actions for the turn, but sacrifice himself at the end of the turn (counts as killed by the enemy for VP conditions).

So there’s one of my new loves – I can’t wait to get him painted up and on the table.  McHammish for President!

Malifaux Teasers for Gencon

Wyrd Miniatures has been going gangbusters for their Malifaux releases at Gencon.  While it looks like they might fall short of the 70% of Book 4 release goal they had (reports are that they will have a lot of Neverborn and Archanists, possibly a lot of Ten Thunders, and nothing from Guild, Ressers or Outcasts), what they are bringing looks very nice.

First, they're moving to plastics with this release.  Metal has just become too expensive to keep up with the rising cost, and they're looking to make some changes to make sure they don't have to increase prices.  While I do like the heft of a nice metal model, I have to say the detail they're putting in to these models looks fantastic.  That, plus the more easily customized models, makes the move to plastic a good move in my book.

NEVERBORN
My first faction and my true love.  They're getting a whole new crew that looks very different from the other Neverborn models.  We've got some dapper gentlemen and some... female entertainers.  On the Breachside Broadcast, they once had an advertisement for a new casino called the Honey Pot, which ended with "Tell 'em Jakob sent ya."  And now we finally get to see Jakob himself.

I've decided I am going to refer to Jakob as Mr. Lynch so that I can have Mr. Lynch, Mr. Tannen and Mr. Graves walking around in their tuxedos kicking butt.  I am really looking forward to this line.
 

 

ARCHANISTS
I have to be honest, these guys don't really do it for me, but I can't deny that they look cool.  The metal/rail road theme isn't really my speed, but Mei herself looks fantastic with the exploding rubble around her.  She's got that kung fu look to her - maybe Archanists will finally get a melee-centric master.

I'm not a huge fan of the Metal Gamin, though I love the look of the Rail Golem.  Willie looks pretty hilarious, but I don't think it's enough to push me into picking up the crew.

 

TEN THUNDERS
Of course, we had to see some of the new faction on the block.  Misaki graduated from a minion in the Outcast line to a master in the new Ten Thunders crew.  They sport a very Asian look.  As a long-time player of the Legend of the Five Rings roleplaying game, I wholeheartedly approve.

I don't like the way Misaki herself looks - she's far too dynamic of a pose.  It looks like they tried to do too much with her.  But Yamaziko looks fantastic, and the Archers look really nice too.

 

EXTRAS
We also got a good look at the new Miss mode, Miss Terious (an alternate Death Marshall).  There's going to be a Santiago alternate sculpt, Santana, which is available only to Henchmen.  And finally, the Nightmare model for this time around is the Hanging Tree featuring Nathan and Eric, the founders of Wyrd.

All three models are top notch.  I'll certainly be getting the Miss Terious and the Hanging Tree.  If I can manage to get my hands on a Santana, I'll be doing that as well.

And because seeing the new plastic models was not enough for Wyrd, they've also gone out to release different pages from the upcoming book to generate even more excitement.  Below are some of the pages they've put up.  All of them look fantastic.  A Resser model with 10 wounds, Riposte, and Object 2?  A Guild model that can pour out tons of ranged damage?  A Neverborn model that shuts down card draw and plays with fate?  An Archanist model that tosses dynamite around and control the field a bit?  And a Ten Thunders six-stone minion with Use Soulstone?  All very awesome.

In short, Gencon cannot get here fast enough.  Less than a week away, and I'm already counting down the hours.

Huzzah's August Tuesday Tussle

A week ago, Bill had a fantastic idea: run a Tuesday night Malifaux tournament.  With only a week notice, he still managed to pull out 12 attendees.  Not too shabby.  We had three Neverborn, one Guild, three Ressers, three Outcasts, and two Archanists.

The tournament was a 25-stone, fixed faction, Domination-style format.  Strategies were random Shared.  Schemes were unique through the whole event, and we had 60 minute rounds with 15 minutes in between.  So it was a fairly condensed format.  We had a lot of newer players as well as some of the vets.  Dave, a henchmen from Rochester who has been visiting DC for the summer, was making his last appearance in DC with us.  Slaz, a local Archanist player, came out for his first Malifaux tournament (he likes tourneys even less than I do).

Overall, the tournament did reinforce one thing: I am glad I did not sign up for a tournament at Gencon.  Just playing the three games gave me a headache, and while I enjoyed the whole tournament, it’s not what I’m going to Gencon to do.  Adepticon next year is a different story – I’ll be there for the tournaments, so that’s what I will be playing.

I came with Neverborn, taking Dan’s advice and filling the case I intend to bring to Gencon with the models I intended to bring so I could see how they’d do.

ROUND ONE – ANDREW (MARCUS/KAERIS)

SHARED DESTROY THE EVIDENCE

Andrew is one of the newer players who has been coming for the past few months from Game Parlor Chantilly.  He’s a great opponent – a lot of fun to banter with and someone who legitimately enjoys the game, no matter which way the flips go.

With Shared Destroy the Evidence, I took Zoraida, Collodi, Four Marionettes, and the Doppelganger.  Collodi was there to get the objective markers, Zoraida was there to survive and help out with her movement if need be, and the Doppelganger was there to get me initiative on the first turn.  Andrew took Marcus, Kaeris, and three Silurids.  I had Bodyguard (Zoraida) and Stake a Claim for my schemes, and he had Power Ritual and Bodyguard (Marcus).

I won initiative on the first turn and was able to use Collodi and the Marionettes to grab the middle objective marker as well as one of my farther-forward objectives on the first activation.  He came in and killed off a Marionette, failing to kill two of them with an ill-timed Black Joker on the damage.  My Doppelganger, Voodoo Doll (on a Silurid) and Zoraida stuck around the back to hold off against the tide of Archanists that would be trying to destroy all his Evidence markers.

By the end of the game, my Voodoo Doll and Doppelganger (with Zoraida’s Obeys) were able to kill off the Silurids before they finished their job.  He managed to use Marcus to grab a second Objective Marker to get 1 point, got a point out of Power Ritual, and succeeded in Bodyguard, while I swept the markers and got my two schemes as well.  I advanced with an 8-4 victory giving me 3/+4/8 (TP/Diff/VP).

ROUND TWO – CJ (McMOURNING)

SHARED DESTROY THE EVIDENCE

CJ is another newer player, though he has become very good over the last few months.  Since we had the same strategy as before, I took the same crew, figuring on getting a bunch of VPs and trying to win that way.  CJ took McMourning, Dead Rider, Chihuahua, two Dogs, and three Night Terrors.  I took Kidnap on the three dogs (two Canine Remains and Chihuahua) and Steal Relic.  He took Kill Protégé on my Doppelganger and Breakthrough.

I won initiative on the first turn and Collodi did his thing, grabbing the middle objective and then withdrawing to safety.  I dropped a Voodoo Doll on the Chihuahua on the first turn, and he killed off his own dogs for Body Parts, so I was able to grab Kidnap pretty quick.  It was the last time any of his models would die.  I dropped Zoraida by McMourning and tried to steal the relic, but failed.  He Dissected her for 10, and I prevented two of the wounds.

The next turn I won initiative and Zoraida won the Steal Relic, then ran away as a Raven.  Meanwhile, Collodi was gathering all the Objectives for me while the bats were gathering all them for him.

Soon thereafter, though, McMourning killed off Collodi and the Marionettes after he finished off the Doppelganger, leaving me with only Zoraida.  He also summoned a Rouge Necromancy and the rest of the game he tried to chase down Zoraida, but she survived to the end.  We both got our schemes, and I got the center objective marker giving me a narrow 8-7 win.  I was now at 6/+5/16 (TP/Diff/VP).

I figured at this point I would be the bottom of the undefeated players (there were three of us) with my Differential being low at +5.  It turned out the other two, Dave with his Neverborn and Slaz with his Archanists, were both at +4.  I would end up facing one of them.

ROUND THREE – DAVE (ZORAIDA)

SHARED DISTRACT

Dave chuckled as he lined up against me, saying that I knew his crew better than he did.  I finally moved off of Zoraida and opted for Pandora this time around.  I knew he had Lilith and Zoraida as his options, and thumbing through my options, Pandora seemed the safest given the mission.  Zoraida… I was kinda done with her for the night, so she didn’t really fit in.  And Lilith was a toss-up if he pulled Lilith too.  Having played that matchup in the finals at NoVA Open, I didn’t want to risk losing it this time around.

So Dave had Zoraida, Tuco, Lelu and Lilitu (he played down a stone) and I took Pandora, Tuco, Coppelius, Primordial Magic, and a Stitched Together.  My schemes were Kill Protégé on Lelu, and Eye for an Eye.  He took Reclaim Malifaux and Steal Relic.

On the first turn he grabbed five of his Reclaim Malifaux points while I moved up the board in a line, trying to find a good target (hopefully Lelu).  On the second turn I was able to get Pandora around to Lelu and killed him with a series of Self Loathings.  I had to start spreading my crew out a little, not wanting my Stitched Together within 6” of one of my own models, and not wanting Coppelius within 2” of one of my own models because I didn’t want to get Obeyed to hurt my own crew.

I managed to get my Stitched around the corner to Lilitu and kill her off after he had brought his Reclaim Malifaux total up to 7.  Pandora lined up against a Zoraida that had just stolen the relic and blasted her with a (-) flip to DF.  I cheated a 13 of crows, and stoned a 12.  He flipped the Black Joker on resist and couldn’t stop it, so he double-moved back to his board edge.  Coppelius moved in and tried to Paralyze her but failed to do so.

On the next turn, I got initiative and Coppelius channeled his spell to make Zoraida flee.  I cheated the Red Joker to cast it, and Zoraida was out of stones.  The only card that could save her was the Red Joker, and it didn’t come up so she ran off the table.  I brought my crew up together, killed off his Tuco, and then sacrificed my crew for stones to get to Eye for an Eye while moving Pandora into the deployment zone.  Final score here, 8-2 as he got a point each for Steal Relic and Reclaim Malifaux.  My final score came out to 9/+11/24 meaning for Slaz to beat me out for first, he would have to win 8-0.

FINAL RESULTS

Slaz ended up playing to a bizarre 0-0 tie against CJ on the next table over, putting him in second place with 7 Tournament Points and securing my lead.  The final standings ended up being:

Mike (9/+11/24) – Neverborn

Slaz (7/+4/12) – Archanists

Dan (6/+6/19) – Ressers

Dave dropped into 4th place with his loss.  There was also a painting contest in which Slaz took the prize with his Kaeris model.

My Nemesis

Evidently, I have met my match.  I have found my kryptonite.  Indiana Jones fears snakes.  The Wicked Witch fears a glass of water.  Green Lantern fears the color yellow (yeah, that’s totally a thing).  Me?  I fear Avatar Ramos.

I don’t have a plethora of experience against him yet, mind you.  Only four games, and that can hardly be enough to fully judge a model.  But my record against him in those four games is atrocious.  I stand at 1-3.  And every time I face him, my tactics seem to come woefully.

I should mention that all four games I have played against him so far have been against the same opponent (Slaz) and I have used the same master (McMourning).  Maybe I am a glutton for punishment, but I wanted to keep going until McMourning was doing well.  After losing my first two, I managed to pull a win a few weeks ago.  Yesterday I faced off again, expecting to pull even, and instead McMourning was surrounded and slaughtered.

In every game, Slaz played to get Avatar Ramos out as fast as possible and have him carry the load.  In all four games he hit the table with an (All) action on turn 2.  My four games ended thusly:

The first game, I lost my crew save McMourning, and then he was surrounded by aRamos and a bunch of Large Steampunk Arachnids who, after losing initiative, all were Obeyed to wreck McMourning’s face.

The second game, McMourning got a few attacks off but kept getting Pneumatic Gripped on his early attacks and could no longer fight against aRamos.  My crew was taking care of aRamos’ crew, but he was able to resummon his Large SPAs pretty quick without much effort.  Soon after, aRamos killed McMourning with several bugs surrounding him.

The third game was the one I won.  After failing to channel Dissection at him with my totem (black joker) I managed to get the Dead Rider to grab him and yank him back to McMourning and through sheer volume of attacks, and no Pneumatic Grip trigger, I managed to kill aRamos.  My crew rushed through for the VPs after that.

The fourth game I tried, McMourning’s crew got wrecked quickly by Johan and the Large Steampunk bugs.  Even after killing more than half of his crew, aRamos resummoned them and then Obeyed them all to kill McMourning.

My original thought was that McMourning should have the advantage over aRamos.  After all, his attacks ignore all the armor that much of his crew enjoys.  But McMourning relies heavily on making a lot of attacks, he can quickly and easily be locked down by Pneumatic Grip.  And if he chooses to go after the crew instead, it is very easy to replenish what is lost as Hasty Assembly is simply a (1) action.  And all the while, whether he’s going after aRamos and risking not doing much due to Pneumatic Grip, or whether he’s going after the crew and seeing his work undone by a few uses of Hasty Assembly, McMourning is contending with his low DF stat against a large number of attacks from nearby models.

So how do you combat Avatar Ramos?  Clearly, given my record, I haven’t figured it out yet.  Here have been my struggles so far:

My games have been very initiative-dependent.  I know this is no surprise in a Malifaux game, but I feel like my games against Avatar Ramos have been even more on that slate.  If I do not win initiative, McMourning does not get the chance to heal up from his wounds taken last turn, and I cannot force aRamos to use his actions either resummoning models or force him to use his stones defensively.  At least two of McMourning’s deaths have resulted after failed initiative flips.

aRamos gets a ton of attacks.  Whether he’s attacking five times himself or whether he’s ordering his crew to all make attacks at the cost of a single Soulstone, he’s putting out far more attacks than McMourning can handle.  And by keeping his crew close together (strategies like Supply Wagon and Turf War help here), I am unable to strike against him where I have numerical superiority.

Killing his minions does not seem to matter.  With the ease at which he resummons new ones, especially given how easily he gains new scrap (Large Steampunk drops three scrap and costs two to resummon).  That each summon is only a (1) action means I need to be killing more than two minions a turn just to make progress.

And if I do attack aRamos himself, it seems to come down to who gets the luckier flip on the soulstone.  I prefer to have a more sure-bet than a lucky stone flip, especially if I am to face aRamos in a tournament.

My overall goal is just that – to be able to beat aRamos in a tournament game.  I want to walk in to a game with him with a set method by which I plan to beat aRamos.  So far, I’ve been unable to find one.  But I’m not ready to give up yet.  I may be struggling with McMourning, but I’m ready to try other tactics.  So what are some new ideas?

Attack him early.  Ramos spends the first two turns, essentially, powered down while he’s manifesting.  If I can find ways to attack Ramos early and put a lot of wounds in to him before he manifests, I’d be more comfortable betting things on a lucky hit.  At present, I know I have to be lucky at least twice once he’s manifest to kill him.  If I can cut that down to once, it gives me the upper hand in fights.

So how to do this?  Using the Dead Rider to drag my master closer to the fight could work.  Pulling in Pandora or Collodi could also give me speed in Neverborn.  Guild I am too fresh with at the moment, but I think they might be able to threaten a bit with ranged attacks instead.

The second thought I have is to attack his soulstones.  This is a primary way I deal with Von Schill and with Colette, so I’m used to doing this.  Cheat cards to force Avatar Ramos to use soulstones, especially on defense.  Hit him with a mass of attacks so that he’s got to start burning through his stones.  Without his stones, Pneumatic Grip becomes far less frightening.

 

If someone else out there has some thoughts or experience around aRamos, please give me some advice.  Slaz is stilling happy on a nice pile of victories over me, and I’ve got to find a way to start evening the score.

In the meantime, though, between Avatar Ramos and Colette, and possibly this crazy new Mei that they’re getting in a few weeks, will Archanists become one of the top tournament factions?  They have some fantastic options available now.  The best master in the game, and now perhaps the best avatar in the game.

I’ll figure him out though… he won’t keep me down forever.

Until next time, keep gaming!

Learning How to Play Guild

My experiment with the Guild continues.  Over the past week I have played another 5 or so games as I work to plow through painting all the Guild I have purchased so far.  Last Tuesday I got a couple games in against Second Generation Awesome Dan's Marcus crew, and then another against a local Andrew's Sonnia crew.  On Saturday, one of the local henchmen Nayte ran a league day at Victory Comics.  I got three real games in (the other three I played were two 5-stone games, and one where neither side was allowed to look at their hands at all) and managed to split perfectly with 1-1-1.  It seems like every game I play, I'm trying something different.  I love getting into a new faction - everything I do seems completely new.

In my first game on Tuesday, I put down Lady Justice and Ryle for the first time, branching out from my Lucius-centric games that I've had thus far.  Dan was playing Marcus and I spent a good chunk of time killing off everything that came near me.  But I learned pretty quickly that my crew wasn't great at heading out to catch other fast models.  Range was my primary weapon there but even still, a few Night Terrors slipped my net.

In my second game on Tuesday, I went back to Lucius and added the Guard Captain to try the Lucius Alpha-Strike.  It could not have gone any better against Andrew's Sonnia crew.  My Austringers were able to pelt his crew from afar while my Hounds rushed to Sonnia to Deliver the Message.

Fast forward to Saturday's games, I faced Bo first and took a Lady J list again, this time using Witchling Stalkers and the Pale Rider for the first time.  We played a game with no schemes and the Viktorias managed to Deliver the Message on turn two.  But in response, I learned just how hard Lady J can really hit!  One of the Viktorias was down by three wounds and in melee with Lady J, and the other was a few inches farther away.  Lady J activated, used Sword Style for +4 CB, and swung at the Sword Viki with her Melee Expert, killing her with 8 wounds in one hit.  She then charged the second Viki and hit, killing her in one hit for 8 wounds again.  It was a thing of beauty.  I managed to collect all my Plant Evidence markers and played to a tie.

Second Saturday game went against Mustache Matt and his Gremlin crew.  I reflipped my Strategy from Destroy the Evidence to Supply Wagon and took Lucius, wanting to try out my new Wardens (yay for being Guardsmen!).  This was another game where everything fell my way.  I didn't realize until after the game started how good Austringers were against Gremlins, and throughout the game I just killed everything that stepped into their range.  The game capitalized when a Warden stepped up and paralyzed Somer giving me virtually an entire round unchecked.

The last Saturday game was against Nayte.  I remember way back in the day when I was teaching Nayte how to play the game, and he's become pretty good with his Avatar McMourning crew.  I took Lady J, the Witchling Stalkers, and the Pale Rider again.  My strategy ended up being Escape and Survive, and he had McMourning with Von Schill, a Shikome and a couple dogs.  Lady J and the Pale Rider managed to kill off the Shikome, but Von Schill set a Red Joker gunshot on Lady J, knocking her down by 8 wounds right quick.  She died the next turn before she could do anything, and Nayte was able to essentially rout my army and I took a 2-6 loss.  While I didn't use any new models, I realized just how vulnerable Lady J is to non-melee attacks, especially against models that can use Soulstones.

So my games have been going pretty well, and I'm enjoying the new Guild.  Especially enjoying just how much damage these guys can pour out.  When a Witchling Stalker hits for minimum 3 damage, my jaw drops.  I mean, I've seen it happen against me before, but it's insane to see me being able to reliably knock down a solid opposing model in two hits when it takes 3-4 with my Neverborn crews.

My Guild crew's at a respectable place for the moment, so I think I'm going to take a break and learn what I've got so far.  I have two choices for master: Lucius and Lady J.  I have one totem, the Drill Sergeant.  And for minions, I'm sitting pretty with three Guardsmen, two Austringers, three Witchling Stalkers, a Lawyer, Ryle, a Guard Captain, the Pale Rider, two Wardens, a Watcher, the Brutal Effigy, and four Guild Hounds.  Overall, not too shabby.

GenCon in Less Than a Month

I just got my GenCon tickets in the mail which means I am one step closer to heading west for Indianapolis.  I’ve been reading through the various companies that put out games that I enjoy and have a list of things I’d really like to see while I’m out there.  Some of them I’ll buy, others just fall in the “curiosity” spot.

Ten Thunders/Storm of Shadows by Wyrd

Every year I go to GenCon (this will be my third year going) I have one place I want to head first as soon as the doors open.  The first year I rushed to the Privateer Press booth to grab a copy of Apotheosis and see what the new warcasters and unique warjacks were all about.  The second year I went, I ran to the Fantasy Flight Games booth to get a copy of the Pegasus expansion for my favorite board game, Battlestar Galactica.  This year I rush to the Wyrd booth.

Wyrd has already announced the name of their new book, Storm of Shadows, and said it will introduce a new faction, the Ten Thunders.  They’ve estimated that around 70-80% of the book will be available at the booth.  I don’t know exactly what that will entail yet, but I know I will be buying at least the book and the Nightmare Hanging Tree.  Beyond that, I’d guess that Neverborn and Guild would be my top priorities.

X-Wing by FFG
I’ll admit I had no interest in this game whatsoever when I first heard about it, and I will likely pass on buying it, but I did get to see what the miniatures are going to look like, and it looks like it could turn out to be pretty fun.  I hope to make it to the FFG booth and get a demo of the game.  If I don’t, no big deal.  It’s not high on my list.  But since I’ve stopped playing Firestorm Armada, I don’t really have a good way to hold off my space combat fix.

Zombiecide by Cool Mini
I love zombie games, and while I certainly will not be purchasing this at GenCon (I already ordered a copy of it through their Kickstarter), I really am looking forward to seeing how the game plays.  The miniatures look good, and the characters I’ve seen from the emails that have been sent out to the supporters look solid.  I expect this to be a game of heroes working together to mow down as many zombies as they can, just blasting them to pieces.

Overall, looks like a nice companion game to my Last Night on Earth addiction.  LNoE serves as a good one for when I'm looking to have my zombies slaughter folks wholesale.  Zombicide will hopefully be the one to grab when you want to get out there and kill dozens of zombie minions.

Iron Kingdoms RPG by Privateer Press
I have been looking forward to this for years.  Ever since Privateer Press stopped making their DnD 3.5 edition compatible version.  I love the world for the Iron Kingdoms, even back before I ever started playing Warmachine.  I remember when DnD3 was a new thing and I saw the art for the first Witchfire book sitting on the shelf at a local gaming store.  I picked it up and read it through and was immediately taken by the world.  As the next two books came out, I picked them up as well, and then the world books when they arrived.  Even though I don’t really like the DnD system, I kept picking up the Iron Kingdoms books.

When it was canceled, we were told that they would come out with a new roleplaying game.  I’ve been waiting years.  And now it’s finally here.

I’ll be taking part in one of the demo games of this – my wife, Dan and his wife, and Slaz will all be joining in on the fun.  Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Level 7 by Privateer Press
This falls into the realm of games I’m interested in seeing but probably won’t buy unless it surprises the heck out of me.  I really enjoy PP games though, so I figure I should give this one a try.  This is a sci-fi conspiracy-type board game, and beyond that I know little about it.

Timber Peak (LNoE) by Flying Frog Productions
Here’s one I am certainly buying if it is there.  Last Night on Earth is one of my top board games, and when I heard they were coming out with a new stand-alone expansion for it, I knew I had to get it.  The game will be able to be played by itself or with any of the other ones.  There are six characters – three new ones and three “survivor” versions of the old ones.  Fourteen zombies, a full set of new boards, and new missions to play.  Seems like a must-have for LNoE players.

The Second City Boxed Set (L5R RPG) by AEG

This last one comes down to how I’m feeling at the time.  I am going to be starting a Legend of the Five Rings campaign up soon and I have been going out and getting all the books I can find for the new edition.  The problem I have is that I really don’t like the current storyline.  The pre-Scorpion Clan Coup time period from back before the card game mucked things up really was the best of the time periods.

Fortunately, most of the 4th Edition L5R stuff can be used with any time period.  It’s designed to be timeline-independent.  However, this new box set is coming out that falls straight into the current timeline.  It’s a city set, similar to the old City of Lies and Otosan Uchi box sets from the first edition.  This one centers around “Second City”, the city that Rokugan is using as the capital of their occupied Burning Sands.  Problem is it sounds very dependent on the Rokugani being in the Burning Sands, otherwise it doesn’t really make much sense.  I might see if I can find someone who can talk me through how it is set up but at the moment it feels like a no-go.

What about all of you who are heading out to GenCon?  What are you looking forward to getting?

Roleplaying Scion - End of the Line

I have found there is always a feeling of catharsis after completing a roleplaying game.  While miniatures games are what I talk about most often here and on the Gamers Lounge, my introduction to gaming came through roleplaying when I was in high school, and some of my favorite memories are from roleplaying games.

Last August I started up a game of Scion with a few of my buddies.  I had always wanted to run a modern superhero-style game, and I had always wanted to run Scion, so the two just fit together well.  I had the players start out with no clue as to their heritage, nor really knowing each other beyond possible passing run-ins.

The first leg of the campaign was the flight stage.  The heroes were thrust together by virtue of the fact that something out there was hunting them all, and in order to protect each other, they banded together.  Quickly, the number of things hunting them grew from one supernatural being to include the US Government itself.  After spending a while on the road just trying to stay one step ahead, things moved into the exploration part of the story where they found others of their kind who knew more about what they were.  Except they quickly found that the people who they talked to all had their own take on what they were.  They were the children of gods.  They were government sleeper agents.  They were failed experiments.

The government caught up with the players and for a while, they joined forces, trying to stop the supernatural from coming after them.  But even as they were being trained, the rules and restrictions being placed on them became prohibitive.  They escaped from the government, getting answers along the way, which just led to more questions.  The government claimed responsibility for creating them, and they were nothing more than another superweapon that the powers of the world fought over after WWII.  The Former Soviets had their own soldiers, which were the supernatural creatures they had been seeing earlier.

But as with everything they had been facing, they weren’t sure they could take the government’s story at face value either.  They ran from the government for a brief time again before once again joining with them, this time more on their own terms.  They flew to Afghanistan where they found and fought against some of the Soviet Scions – those who called themselves the Titans, and killed some of them.

One of the Titans reached out to the players, a man who called himself Prometheus.  He suggested that they join together to create a safe haven for Scions, one far from the grips of the governments.  Just as the players had been finding the US Government stifling, so too had the Russians, and there was a rebellion within the ranks.  But neither government wanted to admit to the other they had lost control.

The players rejected the Titans’ offer and instead started hunting down the answers to their past.  What were they?  Failed experiments?  Children of gods?  Government sleeper agents?  It turned out they were all three.  Back before WWII, the Germans had captured the gods but after the war, they fell into the hands of others.  The Americans ended up with the Greek gods and started harnessing them to create generations of super soldiers.

Enraged, the players found and freed the gods, only to find the gods were none too pleased with having been captured and began to take it out on the nation.  Zeus and Poseidon began attacking the USA and only through negotiation with the players did they cease their assault for a period of 30 days.  The players had to find who captured the gods and give them to Zeus and Poseidon to deal with.

The players joined with Prometheus to try to find what happened only to be betrayed by him as they helped Prometheus get the last ingredient he needed for his plans in Afghanistan.  The players chased Prometheus down but in the fight unleashed the imprisoned Chronos.

Now with time running out they had to find a way to stop Chronos.  They learned that Chronos had sent Prometheus and the other Titans back to before WWII to capture the gods and that they were the ones who had set the whole thing in motion.  The whole plan was set in motion by Chronos to free himself.

The players tracked down how the gods had been captured and realized that it could be used on Chronos too.  Two problems arose: they had no way to keep Chronos back from killing them if he wanted to, and if they unleashed the imprisonment, all gods on the planet would be captured as well.  As soon as they began setting the prison, Chronos would become aware and if he weren’t distracted, he would come after them to kill them.

So they needed someone with the power to distract him.  Which would be the gods, but they weren’t willing to be on Earth when the prison was sprung.

So the Scions went to the gods to Ascend to Godhood.  Four of the seven people took the power so that they could hold Chronos back long enough for the humans to unleash the prison.  In the end of the fight, Ares had died.  As had three of the Scions who stepped forward to accept the power of the gods in order to save the world, Kyle of Dionysus, Ethan of Hades, and Collin of Zeus.  Eris of Ares left Earth for Mt. Olympus just before the ritual was completed and took his deceased father’s seat in the pantheon.  And while Tony of Hermes and Joan of Artemis performed the ritual, Khalesi of Apollo dealt the final blow to a weakened Chronos, pinning him away forever.

 

The campaign itself ran 11 months, which is pretty slick.  It had a lot of options and choices for the players to make, including who would end up becoming the villain of the story.  It could just have easily turned into a story where the characters were government agents heading out against enemies of the State.  Or a conspiracy theory story where the elder generation of Scions – the first ones created by the governments – took on the governments to find out what happened.  It could have been a story about joining with Prometheus to carve out a nation state for Scions to live.  But instead it became one of saving the world from the machinations of Chronos and from the vengeance of the gods.

We’re taking a short break now before we kick off our next campaign.  I figure we’ll be heading in to Legend of the Five Rings next.  Looking forward to it, but for now, it’s nice to have the break.