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Italy has no shortage of Churches, Wine and Italian Food.

All the travel has shifted my gaming to more mobile pastimes. I've spent some time working on my 4E Eberron campaign, and I'm really excited to get back to playing. I was one of the great holdouts on moving to fourth edition, but now that I've made the switch, I'm absolutely hooked. They have put so much thought into making the game easy to run while making it your own. In 3.5, it was almost impossible to come up with custom creatures or items without worrying that you were going to break the balance of the game. 4E has made all of that so much easier that it's actually a lot of fun to come up with your own custom stuff (not to mention that digital tools like the Adventure Tools help a ton).

Speaking of digital tools - if you run a D&D game, you have to check out Masterplan. It is an amazing free application that lets you map out your entire campaign. You can build it out in flowchart mode, map out all of your encounters and experience (so you can see at any point how much XP your party will have earned, making planning level progression a breeze), and keep track of all those little details with the encyclopedia function. It also integrates with WotC's D&D Compendium, so you have all of that information at your fingertips from within the application, making encounter building fast. You can even export handouts or even entire modules at the click of a button. It is by far the best roleplaying tool I have found.

Other than that, I've been playing a ton of Tomb Raider: Anniversary on the PSP. I picked it up to play on the long plane rides, and I've found it completely addicting. Normally, I have a hard time getting into portable games, but I can't seem to put this one down. In fact I've spent the last few nights at home playing that instead of Mass Effect 2. Weird, I know.

Instead of playing Mass Effect 2 on a 42' HD LCD, I'm playing this.

I think I'm back in town for a while now, so I hoping to get back to at least a little more of a routine. I dug out my Warmachine stuff last night and started working on a Khador Decimator. I know this isn't a secret to anyone, but red is really hard to paint well. It just looks so obnoxiously bright while you are working on it, and those Khador 'jacks have such big flat spaces. If I get him done tonight, I'll post some pics. My FLGS is having a 15 point highlander (1-1-1-1) format event in a few weeks, and I'm thinking about playing the Reds in that... I like the occasional small point event - it makes trying out new factions very feasible. I'll keep you posted.

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, miniatures, roleplaying, RPGs, video games, Warmachine

Facing off against a pile of angry elves. Feeling the disparity caused by spending 21 points on 2 jacks. The blue tape marks the corners of the three control zones.

The good news is that my modified list worked out pretty well. Even against overwhelming numbers of ranged infantry I could push through. With this list, Haley's feat turn is an absolute bitch for your opponent. For those not familiar with Haley, her feat allows each model in her control area to have an addition attack at the end of it's activation, regardless of rate of fire. So, turn 3 tends to looks something like: Move Haley up, cast Temporal Barrier (to give all enemies in your control -2 DEF), and put Dead Eye on the Gun Mages. Then, you charge the Stormguard. Each Stormguard is POW 12 and causes a POW 10 electroleap, so they can spawn up to 40 damage rolls (two primary attacks each, two electroleaps). In my games so far I have been able to decimate the front lines, and if the army is packed tight enough, well into the back line.

The gun mages then advance and clean up. They typically use critical brutal shot, and thanks to the extra die from Dead Eye, they roll a fair number of criticals. They get 14 shots this way, with half of the attacks getting the extra attack die. Combine this with True Sight from the UA, and not much can hide. Finally, the marshaled Cyclone gets to go, generating 2d3+1 attack rolls, and thanks to Rune Shot from the Dude, he can use arcane effects as well.

You are starting to get the picture - in one turn 27 models generate up to 76 attacks/damage rolls without spending focus to purchase more. The biggest challenge is getting it all done in a 12-minute timed turn! (You have to resovle an attack every 9 seconds!)

It's great to see 'jacks on the table again, and the Cyclone is already turning into a favorite. Marshaled by The Dude, he's an absolute horror.

At this point I'm pretty happy with the list and how it's playing. It remains untested against a pile of heavy armored jacks, and that's the one thing I fear. I've proved it to be reliable against ARM18 infantry, but I'm worried about a heavy jack swarm. The hunter should help, but I might have to shift tactics and use the Gun Mages to slam things around rather than trying to kill them. A lot of AOEs that can deviate onto my fragile Gun Mages could spell doom as well, but I should be able out-range almost everything but mortars... Yes, I'm afraid of Khador. Hopefully it will hold up!

Labels: miniatures, MKII, wargaming, Warmachine

Epic Angry Old Man about to deliver lightning to your face-hole.

This is what Nemo would look like running away. You will never see this.

As I was playing a game the other day I was looking at my Journeyman Warcaster - he's really well painted (at least by my own personal standards), and I realize the difference is that back then painting was my primary hobby, and I played only the occasional game with a friend. Now that I am more of a player, I think I must be starting to cut corners to get models on the tabletop faster... My models these days don't seem to hold up under the scrutiny of a digital camera, but at least (I hope) they look great on the tabletop.

Labels: miniatures, MKII, wargaming, Warmachine