Fear the Boot and the Fight for America Hill

ByDankelzahn

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 โ€œhillsโ€ and felt we called โ€œforests.โ€ 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 โ€œon the hill.โ€ 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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12/9/2006 Warmachine Tournament Report

ByDankelzahn

Last Saturday I attended a local Warmachine tournament at the Clicks in Crestwood Plaza – a 500-point Steamroller event. This was only the second event I’ve been able to attend since I started getting involved in the local scene. Most events lately have been 750-point events, and I’m just not as big of a fan of the larger games. The few 500 point events that have taken place have been on days I had prior engagements, so it’s been a while since I was actually able to play in a tournament. Fourteen players showed up for the tournament, so it was a pretty good showing. Faction representation was relatively even, with the exception of the Cryx; there were two Cygnarans, three Menites, three Khadorans, five Cryxians, and a merc player. All are members of our local forums.

In addition to the standard Steamroller rules, the Pressganger added an additional rule to try to finish the tournament quickly so everyone could make their holiday events. If it was your turn when time was called, you had five minutes to finish your turn. If you had gone first, your opponent then had five minutes to take his last turn. Personally I wasn’t a big fan of this rule at all – it meant the last player may have five minutes to try to counter his opponent’s ten-minute previous turn, but the majority wanted it so it was put into place.

I decided to give the Harbinger a shot in this tournament, but mine is still in pieces. There’s a few conversions I’m toying around with, and I didn’t want to do a rush job to get her on the table so I borrowed a fellow Menite’s figure instead. My initial choices for my other caster were Kreoss and Amon, but the lists I had come up with were both similar builds, and I needed something to cover the Assassin scenario better, so I went with Severius. My lists were as follows:

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Warmachine: The Vermillion Menofix

ByDankelzahn

It’s time to switch gears a little bit and discuss my wargaming and painting hobbies to fill out the blarging categories I had planned to start with.

Roughly a year ago a friend and I picked up Warmachine, a miniature wargame by Privateer Press. Since then we’ve played roughly weekly and have added a couple of players to our little group (though one has gone MIA after becoming a father). Since I’ll likely talk about the game and the miniatures in the future I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about why Warmachine is my game of choice, why I play the faction I do, and finally how I came up with the color scheme I chose for my army.

I enjoy the warcaster-centric style of play that Warmachine features. Especially since while being the most powerful model in your army, the warcaster is still far from invulnerable and in most cases requires protection to keep him safe. And with good reason – in many cases killing your warcaster is how your opponent wins the game. To use a chess analogy, your warcaster is a combination of the king and the queen. This dichotomy forces you to balance using the piece as an offensive weapon with keeping it safe from your opponents. Read More “Warmachine: The Vermillion Menofix”