Surprise, It’s America Hill!

Spontaneous America Hill, 350 pts.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007

While Prorpger and I were finishing up some delicious food court delectables a couple local players asked me to set up an American Hill battle for them. Considering how long the last oversized America Hill game went I was surprised people still wanted to play but what the hell, right? So four of us sat down for yet another rumble for bragging rights up on high.

America Hill Setup

For those who haven’t read an America hill report yet, the rules are as follows:

  • At the end of each turn, the player with the most models on the hill gains 1 VP.
    • A unit counts as 1 model, regardless of the number of members on the hill
    • In the case of a tie, VPs are awarded to all players tied for most models on the hill
  • At the end of a turn where a player has his warcaster/warlock on the hill, the controlling player rolls 1d6 and gains the following bonus:
  1. Immediately activate the Yellow Woldwomper
  2. Immediately activate the Blue Woldwomper
  3. Immediately activate the Red Woldwomper
  4. Place any one model currently on the hill or within 3″ of the hill within 6″ of its current location. Model may not be placed more than 4″ above the table surface. There must be room for the model’s base at the destination.
  5. Place 1d4 3″ cloud effects in play anywhere completely within the warlock/warcaster’s control radius. These clouds remain in play for one round.
  6. Place 1 3″ fire storm template anywhere within completely within the warlock/warcaster’s control radius. The warcaster/warlock must make a magic attack roll against each model in the AOE ignoring LOS, cover, concealment, elevation, Stealth, Invisibility, or intervening models. Each model hit suffers an unboostable POW 12 damage roll and the Fire continuous effect.

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One More America Hill

One More America Hill
Wednesday, February 14, 2007

With our league starting up next week, this was most likely to be the last America Hill game we’d be playing for awhile. In addition it may be my last battle report for a while. While I’m playing a league game I’m not going to be able take the time to take pictures of everything between turns. So don’t be expecting a new post every week. 🙂

This time around we went with some changes to the hill rules. To emphasize getting to to the hill even more, we required

  • At the end of each turn, the player with the most models on the hill gains 1 VP.
    • A unit counts as 1 model, regardless of the number of members on the hill
    • In the case of a tie, VPs are awarded to all players tied for most models on the hill
  • At the end of a turn where a player has his warcaster/warlock on the hill, the controlling player rolls 1d6 and gains the following bonus:
  1. Immediately activate the Yellow Woldwomper
  2. Immediately activate the Blue Woldwomper
  3. Immediately activate the Red Woldwomper
  4. Place any one model currently on the hill or within 3” of the hill within 6” of its current location. Model may not be placed more than 4” above the table surface. There must be room for the model’s base at the destination.
  5. Place 1d4 3” cloud effects in play anywhere completely within the warlock/warcaster’s control radius. These clouds remain in play for one round.
  6. Place 1 3” fire storm template anywhere within completely within the warlock/warcaster’s control radius. The warcaster/warlock must make a magic attack roll against each model in the AOE ignoring LOS, cover, concealment, elevation, Stealth, Invisibility, or intervening models. Each model hit suffers an unboostable POW 12 damage roll and the Fire continuous effect.

We also decided to fight it out on a large molded plastic terrain board and had to use a smaller hill for the center of the table. Most of the rocks and rubble provided cover, and we let people move out of their deployment areas without movement penalties on the first turn because it would have been too unfair to a couple players.

James, the Cryxian player, opted to go last so I wound up going first. We deployed and set up in the following order:

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Yet Another America Hill

Yet Another America Hill
Wednesday, January 31, 2007

This week we discovered that the hills we had been fighting over were really the wrong hill. Luckily we finally found the right one this week.

Before I get started, I have to make a couple notes:

  • It’s been a while since this game was played, so I’m a little iffy on all the details. I’ll try and fill in as best I can, though.
  • This took place before Remix and we played throws the old way when they happened.

Here’s a copy-paste of the rules from the last hill fight:

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America Hill, the Final Solution

America Hill, the Final Solution
Wednesday, January 24, 2007

This week we decided to try another tweak to the America Hill rules. We discovered that the hills we had been fighting over were really the wrong hill. Luckily we finally found the right one this week.

To help encourage people to take the hill, we added Woldwompers. Woldwompers were independent models that could be activated by various warcasters or warlocks if they were in control of the hill. Woldwompers had the same stat line as a Woldwarden but with -1 SPD and -1 ARM. They also had a fury of two and could be forced by any controlling warcaster/warlock, and the fury would dissipate at the end of each player’s turn. Woldwompers had no animus, no chain attack, but maintained All Terrain, Elemental Construct, and Spell Strike.

  • At the end if each turn, the player with the most models on the hill gained 1 VP. This is turn, not round – we went this way to place more value on the hill.
  • At the end of a turn, if a player had their warcaster/warlock on the hill, they could activate one of the three Woldwompers immediately.
  • At the end of a turn, if a player had their wracaster/warlock on the hill and had or tied for the most models on the hill (units counted as 1 model), they could activate two of the three Woldwompers immediately.

America Hill

Despite the steps we played the hill as “smooth” so it could be climbed freely. We didn’t want to overemphasize the steps too much.

After rolling to determine order, we arranged ourselves around the table as follows:

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Fear the Boot and the Fight For America Hill, Round 2

Fear the Boot and the Fight For America Hill, Round 2 (350 pts.)
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

After the fun we had with the first attempt at the Fight for America Hill we decided to try to tweak the rules to encourage people to take and hold the hill instead of hiding on the edges and sniping adjacent opponents. Our first try was to add VP rewards for claiming the hill.

Scoring:

  • Having the most models on the hill at the end of your turn scores 1 VP
  • Having the most models on the hill at the end of the turn of the player across from you scores you 1 VP

With those changes we rolled for initiatve and picked starting locations for the second try at taking America Hill.

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Fear the Boot and the Fight for America Hill

Fear the Boot and the Fight For America Hill
Wednesday, December 28, 2006

It was a cold and dreary night, but none of us cared because we were all crammed in the back room of the local gaming store, crowded around a table moving our little pewter figures around foam we called “hills” and felt we called “forests.” Somewhere in the midst of our madness we had a wild and crazy Warmachine/Hordes King of the Hill style game between myself, Eye Tyrant, Prorpger, and Patman while Superduck (aka the Breadstick King) watched on).

We decided to have a 350-point four-way King of the Hill style match. Instead of scoring on every turn, each player would earn a victory point if they had more models than anyone else on the hill at the end of their own turn starting with the second turn. The board was dominated by the hill in the center, but there were a few other terrain pieces scattered around the board. Only the hill in the middle and the forest between the Patman and my own deployment areas got any use. The hill itself had some rough edges but to be fair we decided the whole thing was a smooth surface and a model only had to get on part of it to be “on the hill.” Prorpger threw a plastic American Flag that was sitting around on the hill, giving it its name. Which was fine until we realized this must be Early America Hill since there were only four stars and three stripes on the flag. Regardless, the battle was soon joined…

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