Kings of War on Kickstarter

Today I got my Mantic newsletter and was rather surprised at what I was reading. Mantic was doing a Kickstarter for Kings of War. It was rather interesting, and it reached the $10K mark relatively quickly, much faster then I was thinking.

Kings of War is an interesting rule set for me, as you can tell that the heart of Warhammer Fantasy is there, and that is shocking considering who wrote the rules for both rule sets. Kings of War though was much simpler and straight forward, and like Heavy gear Blitz, this was something both my wife and I enjoyed. The game could be tons of fun without half a rulebook dedicated to special rules for each force. My biggest problem with it was namely the size of the game, but that was personal preference more then anything.

Anyhow, it got my interest piqued, as Mantic has been rather low on my radar lately for one reason or another. Of course I have been keeping up with their releases, but for the most part I have been rather dedicated to Heavy Gear Blitz as of late. Seeing this Kickstarter news something interesting in that Mantic, as far as I was aware, was doing pretty well for itself and more or less established. The Kickstarter didn't really seem to have a real dedicated goal to it's funding, but more or less a tapping on the web to see how it would do.

The key thing I am seeing here though is the potential for new customers to get into the game FAST. For $100 you get a rulebook, a first edition vampire mini, and a starter force. Not a bad haul when you consider how much a rulebook alone from other companies could run you on average. Granted you could just get the free rules from the Mantic website, but there is just something about having the rules in your hand. At least for me there is.

Anyhow, take a look at the Kickstarter and see what you think. I am curious to see how this pans out for the company, and more then curious to see if we will see more companies doing things similar later on. This campaign for Mantic 'awareness' comes right on the heels of the latest GW prices going out across the web, and Privateer Presses Summer Sale announcement. It truly is a great time to be a wargamer with all the various options available to us these days.

For me though, I actually still have an elven army I need to finish putting together and get painted from over a year ago. My wife also has a mostly Mantic Undead army in storage. maybe instead of building on Heavy Gear Blitz, I could dig out my Elves and get those all battle ready and have another game ready for the tabletop.

Real life hampering the gaming world

Got to work the other night and I noticed that my hand was having a strange numb, burning, slightly tingling feelings in my wrist. Something that of course isn't normal, and I figured I would see if the feeling would go away with time or not, and of course it lasted the entire 12 hour shift I worked that night. Out of interest for my own health I went to the nurses office to early report it...

That turned on me much quicker then I expected. I went in at 7AM to report, and didn't leave the office until 810AM, have to schedule therapy sessions every week (at least these are free), as well as followup exams with the nurses once a week as well. That isn't the end of it though, else I wouldn't be writing this post. I was asked what my hobbies were, so I gave the honest answer of miniature wargaming, writing on the PC, boomerang, RC helicopters, and bike riding.

The nurse proceeded to tell me that I shouldn't deal with my miniatures or RC helis for a couple weeks, should minimize my time on the PC, but I'm doing good with the bike riding. She didn't bother mentioning the boomerang thing.

This of course leaves me slightly limited in my hobbies for the next couple weeks. We'll see how it goes since I know I will drive my wife up the wall out of boredom. I'm hoping the weather gets better so I can actually go for a decently long bike ride. That will at least be some sort of output for me while I get this wrist looked at, at least for a couple weeks.

Until then, can't say exactly how much I'll be blogging, we'll see as time comes and goes.

Games that define me...

A blog in which I follow frequently (Frontline Gamer) had a post while the last couple days (depending on when you read this of course) about the games that define us as a player and a person. Of course something most people, myself included, don't tend to think about. For me my list is pretty average for the most part, but in the end it leads to the games I tend to enjoy more then others and the people I prefer to play those games with. Of course this list isn't close to the order I played, but games that come to my mind in the order of importance I picked.

Chess: This is the first tabletop wargame most people can say they have played as a child or an adult, and for many it is the only one. For me it was more then that, it was a training tool used by my father to teach me, to hone me, and better yet to guide me. When I was younger I had a bad attitude, I struck out at those around me, and myself often enough. My dad kept sitting me down to play chess with him, but not in a calming easy game as you would think. He taunted me, he lured me into mistakes, he pushed ever button he could in order to make me angry and lose my focus. I remember him sitting me down after I tried to get up and walk away from the game. He said some of the most important words I still hold close to my heart. "You are never going to win if you don't stay focused on your objective. You let others goad you, and you are just letting them win." Granted, when I was younger I didn't care what he said, nor did I truly understand what he was telling me. Now though, I look back and thank him for that lesson, among many others.

Dragonlance: The 5th Age: This was my first RPG kit I ever personally owned, and it really was the first time I ever actually played as a dungeon master. It really helped me learn just how players thought, how my personal characters would be misused in the story, and how to actually tell a story. Of course I was still only in high school, so of course my stories still sucked compared to what I can come up with today, but they were at least solid and made sense as needed.

Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade: This RPG really helped me figure out what type of theme I enjoyed with games. With Dragonlance I more or less stuck with the high fantasy of that storyline, but with Mage I was able to play a bit more so I went a bit darker and more gothic. To this day I still enjoy low fantasy, and tend to have my minis darker toned, and stories more gritty. At the same time I still kept a sick sense of humor in the games. One particular moment where I had the players trapped in a cursed church, and the dice rolls just hated them. Everything they did managed to crit fail and had people being flung to low and slamming into window seals and knocking themselves out, or even worse. Eventually I had to use a couple of my custom characters to save them out of pity. In the end though everyone laughed at how bad the simply church was beating them without me even needing to add enemies to fight.

Heroes Quest: This game was my first meeting with the Warhammer World, and really where I first got the idea a game world could be dark and yet still have some humor to it. In one of the adventures the heroes come into a room and in the center of the room is the miniature you normally had to fight and I spent a good amount of time beating on it doing no damage and wondering why it wasn't attacking back before figuring out it was a statue. I laughed it off, but looking back now, the story could have been better describing the situation I was in.

Warhammer 5th Edition: My first true Warhammer game, where I grew attached to the High Elves. Something about Elves wearing heavy scale mail robes really stuck out to me since I hadn't really seen it done often before that. To this day I love that look, and wish more games gave options for scale mail robes in some form. It is rather disappointing that it is still very uncommon to see. This was also my first true tabletop battlegame, as I hadn't played with miniatures before this. I had done proxy battles with RPG characters, but not full forces like Warhammer offered.

Warmaster: Honestly, this is the game I played most with my then girlfriend (and now wife). I think this is what got her into wargaming, and as such lead into her and I getting Warhammer 40K armies to fight against each other and then gaming together since then.

WarmaHordes/Anima Tactics: I coupled these together, because at the end of the day I learned the same thing from both even though I wanted to enjoy both. I simply don't like playing with premade characters, especially powerful premade characters. In all my time of playing Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, and various other games I never used special characters, then I go to Anima Tactics and found it to be nothing but special characters. it rather took the enjoyment out of the game since I couldn't grow any real attachment to them. Same thing with WarmHordes, as I simply didn't care for the fact that my main guy was set in stone with background, gear, name, and everything else I would want. As special characters became more saturated in the Warhammer worlds, I found myself less inclined to go back to those games as well.






Heavy Gear Blitz: I don't like painting miniatures... at all. Yet when it came to HGB I found myself enthralled with the minis. I couldn't wait to get things finished, and for the first time in many years I actually had a fully painted and table ready army. That wasn't it though, after I was done with my PRDF, I actually found myself wanting to buy more armies to give me more to play with and to paint. HGB really seemed to light a fire in me for the overall hobby, a fire that had been pretty dim for a good number of years prior.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The game that made the Dark gothic world with dark humor for me. The first edition is still the best as far as I am concerned, but I have owned each addition to the current third just out of thewant to keep up with the world I enjoyed so much. While GW might be going more 'grimdark', the WFRP world always had just the right challenge and darkness to it to give players and the narrator a feeling of wanting to return to a  personal level and not just a battlefield commander level. Would love to get in more games, but alas no one nearby to actually game with.

Warhammer Quest: Heroes Quest updated with better minis and more potential for story, what isn't there to enjoy? I still play this game, and even my wife enjoys playing it over newer games like Decent:Journeys Into the Darkness and Super Dungeon Explore. It is a just a great casual game that could really fit into any universe and simply work. My High Elf Ranger Knight was and still is my favorite character to play.

Unfortunate day for the local hobby

Yesterday I got woken up by my wife asking if I wanted to hear the bad news for us, or the worse news for someone else. Of course I wanted to get the news that involved myself directly out of the way, and that was the amazingly high bid the contractor came back with to do our floors in the house. I can live with that, as I can go out and get other bids. If I had the ability and know how to do it myself, I would simply do the floors on my own, but unfortunately that isn't the case.

Anyhow the worse news...

My wife got a call from Chris at Knightfall Games, and he let her know that they were going out of business after five years. To say I was stunned would be an understatement. I would never have expected that the news of going out of business would come so suddenly. I know I always tried to validate purchasing something each time I went in, as I know it was a store first and social environment second. I didn't even bother watching points for discounts since I was more then happy to have a good place to hang out that was good to play at, great with my two kids, and wasn't horribly out of the way.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a great socializer. I simply don't like chatting with folks and faking interests in like I don't 'get' nor understand. At the same time I don't expect people to pretend they care about my hobbies. Knightfall Games was a place where I could actually talk with various people there and have discussions since it was a place for wargamers. I have enough games under my belt that I could talk to anyone about Warhammer, WarmaHordes, Anima Tacitcs, ect and not feel completely out of the circle. I think for me, that is going to be the greatest loss of all, as I simply won't have the opportunity again for who knows how long.

The wargaming hobby at its core is one of some form of socialization, and having a place where the owner and customers were all on friendly terms with each other no matter the game helps that aspect a ton. I have taken a look at other options in my area, but thus far the search has been fruitless. The next step is to see if there is any gaming clubs in the area, but that might prove hard as well. I know I only stumbled across Knightfall Games by chance after getting tired of the store closer to my location not really being a gaming store that suit my needs/wants.

In the end the loss of Knightfall Games is going to be hard felt for a while. I will certainly miss our weekly trips to the store, and I can only hope the best for Chris and his family as he moves on with other endeavors of life. The store added far more to the community then I am sure he could even be aware of.

Heavy Gear Blitz - 1K TV battle report

Tonight I played another game of Heavy Gear Blitz with the wife at Knightfall Games. This time around we used the Gear Up 5 point values which helped me a bit, but also helped her a bit more as well.

We decided to go with scenarios this time around rather then the straight up brawl. Of course I didn't get very lucky and got a hold position (A tank trap just outside my deployment zone), get into the enemy deployment zone, and get unit off the table. My wife had to hold a terrain piece (a tree near my deployment zone) and achieve Active Lock against a squad of 3 or more (she picked my Strike Squad members).

I managed to get the first turn Initiative, but as you can imagine, it wasn't very successful for me overall. I simply was being matched point by point for my dice rolls. I didn't have access to many roads, so each of my gears walked forward slowly, keeping as much cover as possible. My wife started by rushing her Operational Assistance team down the field and the Dark Naga laying down a withering hail of linked rocket pod shots. I didn't take any damage the first turn thanks to cover however.

Turn 2-4 my wife kept winning the Initiative so she continued to go first, which didn't make my tasks any easier. As my wife closed the gap more and more, my advantage of terrain became far more sparse and with it her damage became more dangerous. The HBZK on her commando is simply devastating with the Sniper trait. By turn 3 my entire left flank was demolished and the roads I could have used we secured by the enemy. I tried marching my Cataphract Lord forward and actually managed to hit one of the Vultures on the right side of the board and deal a single box of damage with the Cataphract's LRG. Even my infantry did their best and actually got a damage point on the same vulture the Cataphract hit, as well as another point of damage on the Owl. However I simply could not drive those gears out of the Sturdy boxes.

By the end of the game I only had a Crusader IV, a Warrior IV, a standard Warrior, and my infantry still on the field. I didn't manage to kill a single base of my Wife's Black Talons, even trying for rear attacks at point blank range. I lost without earning a single VP at the end of the game.

This time around I think I stood a better chance then before, my Crusader IVs really did a great job with their MRP firing. All my units actually did a great job and I can't complain about their ability to hit their targets. My problem this match came down to two major factors.

1. Not enough MoS for my weapons to hurt the Black Talons: Simply stated, the Black Talons just have such high armor that x10-12 weapons really need luck on their side to get past the high armor. unfortunately I simply can't validate completely rebuilding my force with heavier firepower, but completely hampering my headcount. That sniping bazooka was one and two shooting my gears, let alone the linked Dark Naga rockets, the guided AGM, ect. less headcount would be just as deadly for me.
2. Bad Deployment: This was all on me. I knew I needed to get to the opposite side of the table by the end of the turn, but I picked a bad stationary target to take and hold and I put most of my gears in the grass rather then on the road where they could double their movement. That was just a dumb and novice move on my part. I probably could have scored more points I have had been more focused on my goals rather then staying in cover and away from the Black Talons.

So in the end, my force did well enough, but I simply didn't roll high enough to hurt the walking tanks coming at me from across the field, and I didn't deploy well enough to take advantage of the terrain on the board to support my end game goals. I think I am happy with where my force stands, as I can't control dice rolls; those will either go my way or won't. The deployment thing is all my fault, I can't blame the game for that at all. In the end it was still a fun game and I felt like it should have been closer then it was in the end. The Gear Up 5 values really helped out I think at making the PRDF and the Black Talons stand on more equal ground.

Now onto my next task, the building of a Leagueless force. I'll of course expand on this once I actually figure out exactly how I plan on doing everything.