Doubles Tournament

I went to a WHFB doubles tournament in Grande Prairie this past weekend.  When Mike and I were deciding what armies to take we ran into a problem.  The tournament followed the alliance rules in the Warhammer rule book.  Mike only plays bad guy armies and I only have the High Elves.  What to do.  Luckily, Mike had picked up around 1000 points of Vampire Counts a month or two ago from a guy who was getting out of the hobby.  I have never played VC before, but I was willing to give it a go. 

The tournament was 2000 point armies with each player taking a minimum of 990 points with 10 points that you could swing to one army or the other.  We played three games on the Saturday.  Our list was:

Vampire Counts	Points
31- Ghouls, with Ghast	256
24 - Skeletons, with full command	212
21 - Grave guard, with full command, Banner of the Barrows (45)	327
Vampire Count, Summmon Ghouls (15), Dark Acolyte (30), Black Periapt (15), Helm of Commandment (30) charmed shield (5)	195
Total	990

Warriors of Chaos	Points
18 - Warriors of Chaos, Standard and musician, flaming banner (10)	334
5 - Hounds of Chaos	30
5 - Hounds of Chaos	30
5 - Chaos Knights, musician	210
5 - Chaos Knights, musician	210
Chaos Sorcerer: Chaos Steed (16), Extra level (35) Infernal Puppet (35), Third Eye of Tzc (25), Lore of Fire	196
Total	1,010

Game One

Our first game was against Dark Elves and Vampire Counts.  Things looked grim early on as the scenario gave all casters access to the base spell from the Lore of Metal.  One unit of knights was removed on the first turn.  Luckily, the Corsairs ran and didn't rally until the last round, so we didn't have to deal with them.

The ghouls were engaged with Grave Guard and our GG was engaged with their ghouls.  Things were a bit of a standstill until some poor rolling on the opponent VC player's part resulted in the vampire being killed by the ghouls.  After that our GG chewed through their ghouls and flank charged their GG as the remaining knights got them in the rear.

The game came down to a combat between the unit of skeletons against a unit of Witch Elves and Shades.  The elves killed all but one skeleton.  The points of that skelly unit would have changed our narrow victory to a draw.

Game Two
Having won one more game than we thought we would, we felt we were playing with house money.  We came up against VC and Warriors of Chaos.  Their list had a vampire lord, a large unit of ten trolls and 30 or 40 chaos marauders.

Again, we got lucky.  The vampire lord miscast three times in the first three turns and blew himself up.  The large unit of marauders was drawn off to a flank by the dogs and knights which basically left a scary unit of trolls.  We had set up a pretty good trap of warriors, GG and ghouls for the trolls when we ran out of time.  We had another small victory.

Game Three
The final game of the day was against an Empire/Tomb Kings army.  It was interesting as it was our first experience against the new Tomb Kings.  Unfortunately, we ended up with the Battle for the Pass scenario against a gunline army.  We also didn't roll for Vanhels.  It was a long way for those undead to get across that table.  Also, the team were a couple and the female part of the team was very new to the game and this slowed it down even more.

We benefited from the other team's bad luck again.  The TK catapult misfired on turn two and couldn't shoot.  That gave some knights time to smash it.  Also, two of the Empire's three mortars blew up in the first three turns.  Lastly, the TK level four wizard miscast and we used the Infernal Puppet to make the miscast go to the big boom.  Bye. bye wizard.

From there it was just a matter of getting across the table.  But they were so slow that we ran out of time just as we were getting to the meat of their army.  We only got four turns in before time was called.  I don't think it would have made a big difference in the grand scheme of things, but disappointing all the same.

Conclusion
I think we finished somewhere around third or fourth at the tournament.  Not bad for my first time playing VC and us not expecting to win anything.  Our goal was actually to win best sports, but we won some games instead.  We actually won best painted.  I felt bad because I had only based a bunch of the models.  The kudos actually go to Mike.

So my first tournament in over a year and only my second tournament ever went very well and I'll be looking forward to more in the fall.

The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear

 

I read both of these books back to back, so thought it would be easiest to write my thoughts on them together.  Let's start off by saying that I really liked both of these books.  I would have to in order to read to large tomes like these back to back.  I'm not sure I love them as much as some people do.  They are not the best books I've ever read, but they are definitely in the upper echelons.

The first thing I liked about these books is the form of the story or rather stories.  The book is written as an infamous man named Kvothe telling his life story to others.  However, there are interludes to his retelling in which another story is unfolding very slowly.  The reader only gets little glimpses of what is going on while the main character tells his story.  We only vaguely know why the main character is so famous and his story is so sought.

The other thing about these books that sets them apart from so much of the average literature out there is the depth and scope of the world Patrick Rothfuss has created.  Rothfuss' world seems real in the sense that there are legends and history.  All of the nations of the world have histories as well as stories from long ago that may be true, false or a little bit of both.  To me, this is where most fantasy novels fall down.  If the world is deep enough, you can become immersed in it and lose yourself for hours, days or weeks.  In Rothfuss' world, there always seems to be more to learn about it and that which is unsaid and unknowable.

The last thing I would like to comment on is the characters.  The characters are very well developed and none of them is cookie cutter.  Yes, you have the hero and the villain and the side-kicks, but they are not cliche while fulfilling these literary roles.  It is a good sign when you give a crap what happens to the characters in a story.

One thing I did not like about the books is the amount of time spent on some areas of the story.  An inordinate amount of time seemed to be spent with Kvothe at the University.  There were many experiences and adventures that seemed pointless and really not leading anywhere.  I was really looking forward to something different by the time the setting changed away from the University part way through the second book.  I will admit that the series isn't over and so maybe all those experiences at the University will fit into the bigger picture by the end.

So, I would definitely recommend these books to anyone who likes a well written fantasy story that will immerse you in the experience for a few weeks.  I would not recommend these books to anyone who is a slow reader or cannot stick with a book for very long.

New Toys

Yay!  I got some new toys for my PoM army.  I'm looking to get past the piddly little battle box games I've been having.  They are great for familiarizing yourself with the basic rules, but they become very boring very quick.  Now, I have to put this stuff together.  Painting will be some time in the future.  I'm a little ticked that I had already started painting my three remaining Errant Exemplars when these other four guys showed up.  I could have had them all done together.

Now I  have 8 Errant Exemplars and a Leader, a Vassal and another Heavy Jack.  I think I'll magnetize the jack so I can get maximum usage out of it.  I'm just waiting for my package from Miniature Market with my Choir and the unit attachment for the Exemplars.  I should have a tidy little force going on then.  However, I have no idea where to go from there.  Maybe a different caster to play with...

Star Wars: Old Republic

This trailer is fantastic.  How can you beat a mix of Indiana Jones and Star Wars?

A Reasoned Response to Games Workshop

I found this video on the Beasts of War site.  It is quite a reasoned and thoughtful open letter to GW imploring it to change its' business practices.  It is telling that this entreaty is from a business (Miniwargaming) that by their own admission makes most of its' money from GW products.  One can only draw the conclusion that they see GW's current practices as damaging in the long run for not only GW viability, but also for their own bottom line.

I would hesitate to think that this will make any difference to the way GW operations work however.  Corporate entities are generally slow to change and don't always act in their own best interest (although they think they are).  I am sure that GW is confident that because it basically created the industry, it is in a solid position for the future.  However, history is littered with companies that could not keep up with the times and fell by the wayside after beginning their lives as industry leaders (Atari, Commodore, Xerox, Pan-Am).

It will be interesting to see where GW goes in the coming months.  As they seek to use new technology to sell and promote their product, they make themselves more open to public outcry and criticism.  I am thinking of the flooding of their Facebook page recently.  It remains to be seen whether the big giant heads at GW listen or ignore the clamour at their front gates.

Menoth vs. Circle or Finding New Ways To Lose

I had another small game of Warmachine on Friday night against James.  James has lots of new Warmachine minis I'm sure he'd like to try out, but the rest of my Menoth force in the mail, so we had to make do with another small game.

I had expect James to bring his Khador, but he surprised me with some Circle of Orboros models.  I had only played against a Hordes faction once before and that had ended poorly for me.  But I was curious to see what the Circle had to offer.

James had two giant stone constructs that seemed pretty tough with lots of buffs to make them tougher and they could be healed.  So I decided that the best bet was to go for an assassination of his caster (or whatever Hordes calls them).  I managed to bring my Repenter within range of his caster and squirted some fire at him as he peeked out from behind his stone man.  I did a respectable amount of damage and was feeling pretty good about things, as he was now on fire as well.  That is when I got the nasty surprise that his caster could transfer his damage to the stone dude.  Let me tell you that sucked.  Now I was left in the position of having to destroy his constructs in order to have a chance at hurting him.  This seems a little weird to me, as it means there is only one way to play this game (when not using a scenario).

How did that happen?

The next turn his caster took some more fire damage and passed it on to his large stone friend. As an aside, setting things on fire is fun.  I had set caster up behind my other light jack and had given him Defender's Ward.  I was also threatening James' closest construct on the flank with my heavy.  I hoped he would go after the more immediate threat.  However, I got another lesson, when he slammed my light jack, thereby knocking it and my caster down.  Annoying, but not fatal, until his other construct was able to make a charge to my caster by a fraction of an inch and pulverize him in one smash.

I'm finding Warmachine has a very steep learning curve and  I will admit, I have not spent too much time reading the rule book.  I find that I only start looking to defend against some things once they have been done to you.  Now I know to watch for (and use) slam to get things out of the way and/or knock down things that are hiding.  I also know to make sure that charge lanes are blocked or that I'm out of range in case my guy falls down on his ass.

I only got to roll dice twice that game, but it was definitely an education.