Sleeving & Storing WM/H Stat Cards

Stat cards are a tremendous benefit to the game of warmachine and hordes, allowing quick reference to the entire suite of your models’ rules and abilities, as well as providing a place to track damage done to multi-wound models. They’re definitely an invaluable resource to the game, but as expansion books are published, each faction gets access to more and more models and units. For the player that means more and more cards in their collection to keep track of.

When I first started playing, most locals sleeved their cards individucally and kept them in a deck box. I quickly adopted this method and found a couple products that I really liked – Dragon Shield card sleeves and Ultra Pro deck boxes.  I’ve used this set up for years – it’s quick and dirty but it works.  I never had any problems at all in actual play, but as my army collections started getting bigger, keeping the cards sorted became harder – I started chucking whatever I had played back in the box after each game.  Searching for cards when building armies on the fly started taking longer and longer, so I started looking at alternatives.

Alternatively the Dragon Shield Box will double as a cheap (but less durable) deck box.

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Word of Everblight vs. Spirit of Everblight

The word of the law vs. the spirit of the law.  Whenever people get together to play a game of any type they have to decide where on that spectrum their game play experience will lie.  Most cooperative and/or casual games will lean towards the latter, but most competitive games sit bunched around the former.

Each gamer has their own opinions on the philosophy of game design, and I’m no different.  In my mind, if a game is designed to be played in a competitive format, then it should be designed to abide by the letter of the law.  By designing for the more strict guideline, those who prefer the more casual and/or want to tweak their experience – to make the rules feel more fluffy or appropriate to their own vision of the game – can do so.  Designing from the opposite standpoint results in a game that works for those on the spirit end of the spectrum but will likely negatively affect the word end of the spectrum, as the rules will either fail to accommodate certain interactions or maybe even resolve them in a manner the game designers didn’t desire.

Privateer Press seems to take the word-emphasized view of design, which I certainly appreciate.  Each incarnation of their Steamroller tournament system has had its flaws, but for the most part they design their game and format so that it can be played in a highly competitive venue and not break down to dicing-off rules interpretations.  In the past they’ve even made rulings that seem to go counter to how a rule was meant to be played when it preserved the word of the rule.  For example, the ruling on MkI Vilmon that allowed him to run and still use his Impervious Wall ability.  The rules supported the tactic, so whether or not it was intended it was supported (until the rule was reworded in MkII).

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I’m Jinxing it

Exemplar Errant Unit Attachment
Exemplar Errant UA

That’s right; I’m doing it.  Even after the last two disappointing Protectorate previews I’m going to talk about my hopes for the upcoming Exemplar Errant Officer and Standard Bearer.  Errant themselves are solid, and if the Temple Flameguard are any precedent their UA will boost them into the realm of teh win.

In Mk I, Errant were known for their outrageous point costs but now a Protectorate only pays a whopping 5 points for a minimum unit or 8 for a max.  For that point cost you can field an efficient jack-of-all-trades unit with at least one ability to help them fill any roll on the table:

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St. Louis Privateer Weekend III: June 4th – 6th, 2010

Ye be warned… For the past 2 years the best players from around the nation have descended on St. Louis to participate in one of the most intense and grueling Warmachine and Hordes competitions known to man and beast, including the first official MkII Hardcore tournament. The St. Louis Riverdogs are pleased to announce our third annual Privateer Weekend at DieCon X June 4th through the 6th. This will be the premiere event for the Midwest prior to Gen Con 2010. Privateer Weekend consists of 3 days of spine crushing, cortex smashing fun coursing over more than 7 events. The terrain is amazing. The competitors are top tier in both skill and personality. Here lies the ultimate in gaming. Featured events over the weekend include a specially designed train event by the Iron Agenda podcast, two Steamroller 2010 competitions, an ongoing Tide of War competition, Iron Kingdoms knowledge tests hosted by Capt. Saultydog, and our main event, the first official Mark II Hardcore tournament on Saturday. If this wasn’t enough, the weekend will also feature various painting competitions and a diorama competition.

Complete schedule and details are available on our site,  or keep up to date by following us on Twitter. See all the fun-filled convention activities and preregister at the DieCon home page. Registration for DieCon X is only $26.00 until April 15th. After that, registration increases to $31.00 – still an amazing bargain. Online payments will be accepted via PayPal. Those particpating in Hardcore will have an additional 5 dollar fee which goes towards a personalized 2010 Official Hardcore dogtag. Remember to select “PP Hardcore” under the list of Saturday events to reserve your spot today and enter your requested personalization at that time. Our schedule is listed below…

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The Fallacy of Risk vs. Resource Resource Management

Most of the time when an experienced player is trying to explain Warmachine and Hordes to a potential new player, they’ll use a common phrase to compare and contrast the focus and fury mechanics that drive the two games:

“Hordes is Risk Management, where Warmachine is Resource Management.”

I cringe every time I hear that.

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Field Test Eve

Tomorrow the Hordes communities will be whipped up into a frenzy with the release of the Hordes Field Test Rules.  While there will undoubtedly be players dissecting the rules and identifying the merits and flaws of various models logically, the amount of outcry promises to be very entertaining.  I can’t wait for the circus to start.

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Hordes: Frostfang Brood

When I just tried digging up a link to my write-ups on the color scheme for my Warmachine/Hordes armies, I found an article for The Vermillion Menofix but I didn’t see one for my Legion force.  So to remedy that I snagged this off another forum and have copied it here to my blog.

Looking over my Legion of Everblight models, it didn’t take long for me to decide to go with a color scheme that matched their background in the frozen mountains to the north. I immediately decided to have a cool blue be a dominant color and worked from there, eventually coming up with a ‘bone-and-blue’ scheme shown below. I won this warpack in a drawing the day of release and I began assembling the models relatively soon thereafter. The paint job was chosen to be unique at the time, but it turned out that since I started a number of people have had the same idea and my models were by no means the first ones done with this scheme.

Many of the techniques I started using on my Legion models were relatively simple and there were a great deal of large expanses to do but still… for some reason I felt drained after painting these up and had to take a break for a bit before picking the brush back up. I don’t think I’ve ever painted a miniature (or group of miniatures) that took as much out of me as the Legion of Everblight Warpack did.

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Tactica: Raptors

Legion of Everblight Raptors
Legion of Everblight Raptors

With the release of Incubi, I shelved my Raptors for a bit while I concentrated on the small-based Nyss troops.  My Raptors sat mostly unplayed until the recent Veto tournament where I dug them out to use as substitutes when needed.  It’s hard to imagine but I had almost forgotten how good they are.  Almost.

Overview

The Raptors are one of the most versatile and dangerous weapons in the Legion of Everblight’s arsenal.  They are a quintessential flanking force capable of striking and escaping long before an enemy force can pin them down.

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