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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¿Qué pasa con todo el azul?

My painting has been progressing slowly but steadily.  Nowadays it seems like I can only spend so much time with the brush before I need a break.  But I recently made progress on a handful of miniatures so I figured it was time to add to my (lacking as of late) collection of WIP shots.

Rhoven & Honor Guard
Rhoven & Honor Guard

First up is Rhoven and the Honor Guard.  I posted some initial WIPs of the Honor Guard a while back and since then I’ve made some pretty good progress.  The Honor Guards have actually been sitting mostly done for a little while now while I worked on Rhoven himself.

I’m most happy with the lower portion of Rhoven’s robes so far, but there’s still some work that needs to be done.  I’m going to repaint the stole for starters; the highlights were pretty borked when I did them the first time.  That and some more general cleanup work should make him ready for sealing.

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Rethinking the Retribution

At GenCon I picked up a copy of the Retribution of Scyrah army book and Kaelyssa, Night’s Whisper to play with potential color schemes.  At first I was tossing around the idea of starting up a Retribution force – the playstyle looked interesting and it had the “shiny new hawtness” going for it.  Then I realized something… I’m already getting a new faction.

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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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Character Jacks & Beast

It’s been over half a year since I started my Protectorate of Menoth character warjacks.  Working on them quickly degraded from fun to tedious but a couple weeks ago I finally forced myself to sit down and make some actual progress. I’ll finally have them – and Typhon – competed within the next couple days. … Read more

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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Tactica: Thagrosh, the Messiah

Thagrosh, the Messiah
Thagrosh, the Messiah

On Episode 29 of Iron Agenda I gave my initial impressions of Epic Thagrosh, along with the rest of the new models the Legion of Everblight received in Hordes: Metamorphosis.  Ever since I saw the sculpt I knew that I wanted to be able to play the Messiah with confidence, and that meant a lot of practice to get a good feel for him and what he can do to overcome his weaknesses.

My experience with the Messiah has confirmed many of my earlier opinions regarding some of his deficiencies, but with a few tournaments (including an official Hardcore) utilizing him under my belt,  I feel confident enough to talk about him in more depth.

Fluff

I had been waiting for Hordes: Metamorphosis ever since Hordes: Evolution was first released, primarily to see how an event as epic as Everblight consuming Pyromalfic’s athanc would be handled while maintaining balance on the game table.  We’ve always known that some personalities in the Iron Kingdoms defy tabletop rules.  Was Thagrosh to be elevated to those ranks, already occupied by the likes of Voyl, Toruk, and Vinter? Fortunately for Legion of Everblight players and modelers the answer was a resounding no.

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