Recent Games and Reflections

September is the craziest time of year for me.  Coming out of the hibernation period that is the summer and being dropped right into a full boarding school teachers schedule is a bit intense.  Now I remember why I didn't start The Steam-Powered Gamer until October (OMG ALMOST A YEAR OLD!) - I was far too busy in September to do it.  Things are starting to calm down here a bit now 0 well, actually, I think I'm just getting into my groove.  Anyway, I have still been trying to be productive when it comes to Warmahordes stuff and I've managed to get a couple of games in at the local club.  Now that school is back in session some of the regulars have been coming back to the game club so I can at least get a game of Warmahordes in on Friday nights (typically).  That said, 2 games in the month of September is still not that great, but let me outline quickly how those games went.

Warmachine: Colossals Consolidated Spoilers! [UPDATED 6-3-12]

Today I have something special for you all.  With Lock n' Load starting yesterday, I managed to scour the interwebs for everything that I could find on this event (since I couldn't make it myself).  Not only do I have pictures for you but some awesome spoilers on some of the new models coming out!  If you were following the Facebook page yesterday then some of this will be old news for you (lesson: like us on Facebook!) but there will be some new stuff that I've compiled from the Privateer Press forums for you all.  Let's start with some pictures and then I'll head right into rules!

[UPDATE 6-3-12] - We also have one of the spoiled cards for the Trollbloods Mountain King!  This answers a lot of questions that I had about how these Gargantuan warbeasts would function.

List Building: Witch Coven - Part 2

Yesterday we took a look at the first part of list building with the Witch Coven.  These ladies offer a lot of flexibility on the tabletop and are very different from any other warcaster in the entire game.  Consequently, they are often ignored as a choice because they are a bit intimidating when you're looking at building a list.  Added into that, Cryx is normally a pretty straight-forward faction, relying mostly upon their numbers and melee abilities that the Coven seem a little lackluster without crazy damage buffs.  In reality, these buffs come in disguise and the Coven has a great feat which can mitigate the fragility of most Cryx models.

Today I will look at a few models for consideration when taking the Witch Coven.  Lastly, I'll share a diagram to hopefully illustrate the power and effectiveness of the Coven on the tabletop.  Obviously, there are many situations you could find yourself in, but the example I will share will hopefully help you understand the true potential of the Coven.

List Building: Witch Coven - Part 1

The Steam-Powered Gamer is back!  I've been hiatus for the last week taking care of the school production of Beauty and the Beast and it's been a lot of work.  I put in about 40 hours into the show this week - and that's in addition to my normal hours teaching.  It's all over now, though!

Today I will be bringing you all the eagerly-anticipated list building article on the Witch Coven of Garlghast.  The Witch Coven is viewed with a lot of anxiety by the Warmachine community, and especially Cryx players.  How can they win?  What can they do?  Their spell list and feat make it difficult to see exactly how they'll achieve their victory at first glance.  Compared to their peers in Cryx, the Witch Coven seem difficult to use and understand, and it's not immediately apparent which models should be taken with them to make the most of their capabilities and achieve victory.  Toss in the fact that they operate differently from pretty much every warcaster in the entire game, they're not often seen on the tables.  Let's see if we can make sense of them here but we'll need two articles to cover these ladies since there are many complexities to their playstyle.

4/15/12 Tournament Results

I had mentioned on here in passing that there was a tournament yesterday at the Hobbytown USA in New Milford, CT.  I've been frequenting the club a lot lately because a) it's relatively close to where I live and b) everyone there is really cool!  When I had originally moved to CT, I tried frequenting a club in Torrington but while they had a reasonably good stock of models, the people there were quite insular and mostly just played 40k.  I wish that Hobbytown carried more Warmachine/Hordes product, but I imagine that as more people get into the game and place orders, that could change.  But I digress.  The tournament yesterday was pretty fun and while there were only 6 of us present, it was good to get some games in with my Circle.  First, let me share a couple of pictures from the event!

Debriefing: pKrueger Battle Report

Yesterday I posted a battle report with pKrueger vs. Venethrax - the first time using Prezi to do so.  So far the response has been fairly positive, so thanks everyone for being supportive!  I clearly learned some lessons using Prezi for a battle report, as in the past I've only used it for teaching a lesson for class and I didn't use so many high-res photos.  I do like how it turned out, and I will use it again in the future, but I clearly need to streamline the process a bit and adjust the picture quality.  I promise that in the future, the photos will not be so intense and Prezi won't freak out so much and use up too many of your system's resources.  For those who had that problem, I apologize sincerely!

Beyond the lessons I learned from using Prezi for a battle report, there were some valuable lessons that I learned from my first game against Venethrax, and that is actually what this article will focus on.  Today, I debrief my performance using pKrueger at 35 points.

Prezi Battle Report: pKrueger

So a couple of days ago I played a game with pKrueger in practice for a tournament that's coming up this weekend.  I finally remembered to take pictures so I could write up a battle report for you all, but this time I decided to to something special!  I actually have to admit that I hate video battle reports.  They seem to cater too much to a cult of personality, I guess, and I'm more interested to hear about the game than hear some dude explain it to me.  I dunno, maybe it's just me.  Alternatively, I do like posting pictures which are narrated and annotated to show what happened in various steps along the way, but the limitation is that since activation order is so important in Warmachine/Hordes, it can be difficult to see the order in which things happen.  That's why I've decided to use Prezi to both annotate the pictures but to also emphasize activation order where appropriate.

List Building: Ships in the Night Revision

I posted my pseudo battle report the other day on my first game with Cryx and my first game with the pSkarre Ships in the Night theme list.  It was a fun game but I also learned a lot about the list.  I also made an error during the game: I assumed that if a warjack could get focus via a warwitch siren, that it could still spend that focus even with a busted cortex.  While this ended up helping me put some damage on Durgen, seeing as I won by scenario, I don't feel like a complete jerk.  Part of the reason why I played with my particular list, however, was due to a lack of models and so now I want to reflect on an updated list based on the suggestions and my experience with the list the other day.

Psuedo Battle Report

Thursday night I finally had the opportunity to play a game with pSkarre's Ships in the Night theme list.  It was a really great game and a good opportunity for me to try a faction other than Circle - with which I've been playing exclusively for the last couple of months.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to take any pictures of the game so I can't really give you a proper battle report.  I will, however, give the list that I played with and some perspectives on the list, how it performed, and some general reflections on various elements of the list and how to use them most effectively.

List Building: pSkarre Ships in the Night

With the last two weeks consisting of theater technical directing and this week final exams for the term, I've been so busy that I couldn't find time to write articles the last two days and I apologize.  To make up for it, I will share the unabridged version of an article which will later appear on 3++ is the new black.  Today I wish to discuss an interesting warcaster who is often known for her Great Rack (it's the name of one of her weapons!).  That's right, today I wish to discuss Pirate Queen Skarre.  I know, I know, Cryx is dirty and they're no-good jerks.  In the Master's tournament at Templecon 5 of the 16 players brought Cryx armies to the tables.  Have no fear, however, as those dirty Cryx players didn't win this time, so I have no qualms introducing one of my favorite Cryxian theme lists today from the pages of No Quarter 37: Ships in the Night.

Editorial: Character Restriction

So recently I've been reading a lot of chatter about the new SteamRoller 2012 tournament rules.  These rules have not been finalized yet, but they are certainly causing a stir for one big reason: character restriction as a standard.  What does this mean?  Well character restriction already exists in SR 2011, and what it means is that model that is FA:C can only appear in one list if there's a multiple list format.  This also means that you cannot use the same warcaster/warlock in multiple lists, but in the SR 2012 format, you can have a prime and epic version of a caster in two of your lists.  So if I wanted to run pBaldur and eBaldur, I'm totally allowed, but I can only take Megalith in one of the lists since he's FA: C