Well, I am back with my internet ramblings about gaming. I recently had the good fortune to play at a tournament at FTW games again in Richmond Virginia. It is a great store with a great owner and I am glad to be able to play there. I have a couple of little nitpicks from the tournament though, maybe every tournament I have gone to but just never said, nothing major, just small stuff.
1 - Imperial Armore Apocolypse II
Ok, this is a great supplement, it gives you more options for armies then what is already out there and they do have some amazing models. They also though are a form of expansion rules for Warhammer 40K that most people will not have access to. In the rulebook there is some confusion surrounding the whole use of the Warhammer 40K and the Apocolypse icons used in the book. My understanding of the point behnd those two symbols is that you can tell at what kind of level they should be played at. There are some though who believe that this is an indication that the models witht he "Warhammer 40K" stamp are intended for normal use and tournament play. I need to personally look through the book myself one of these days but I do recall that it has been said that there is a small blurb that still states that the units in the book still require yoru opponents permission just like with any other version of an IA supplement.
The only real reason I bring this up, had it beenknown that IA Apoc II was allowed in the tournamant then I woudl have been prepared with a much better tau Commander then my standard suit. I also woudl not have had a OMGWTF moment when I faced 2 huge squads of Grot Tanks and some kindof mad max looking ork vehicle that I had no idea what it was as well as 2 gigantic Killa Kans that looked like they were some awwful spawn of a Dreadnight and a Killa Kan.
2 - Gamer Funk
This is sort of self expanitory, but unfortunately needs to be said. You are goingg to an enviroment where the humidity will be high there will be tenson and sweating, a great many peopel will be bumping into each other and shuffling around, yelling and talking and the tempature will get pretty high. Shower first. If you smell like any kind of bodily fluid, wash yourself before attending. If you are in a mood not to wash yourself, not to clean yourself up, not to smell halfway decent at the beginning of the tournament, then please, dont come. you make the experience very poor for those of us who are forced to play next to you or against you.
The reason I bring this up is that at any venue I have been to there have been players who, for one reason or another, feel that they they are exempt from the common courtiousies of modern society which includes being clean and not smelling like thier own excrement, or of horrible BO, or like Onions. I understand life is tough, I wont take depression or "I dont have a job" or "I smell from my job" as an excuse, I am unemployed and a pretty good candidate for zoloft right now, when I worked I was working in a very dirty enviroment, depressed, not depressed, bad or good mood, I shower before going to the game store or a tournament. I am not trying to be a mean sprited person. I have played games where the people I play against havent bathed in a long time and at the end of that 8 hours they can overpower an entire table with thier odor.... I know nurgle can grant Noxious Touch and Cloud of Flies, that doesnt mean you have to have them in real life.
3 - Scheduling
This isnt so much for one side or the other about runnign in a timely manner or playing in a timely manner as much as it is somethign for both and can be cut down into a few little sub sections.
There are a few basic rules I woudl suggest
Player Scheduling -
Make sure you have enough time to play through the whole tournament
Emergencies happen and people have to leave sometimes, but when you know you go to work at 5 and the tournament begins at 12, dont sign up or play, all you are doing is messing up someone elses experience when mid game you tell them that you have to leave and go to work leaving them hanging mid game
Dont run over the break
Not alot to say here, the breaks are the length they are for a reason
Dont slowhammer
Slowhammer is just stupid, slow, boring and rude.
Venue Scheduling -
Start when you say you will
I have been many places and played a good number of events, it always starts to suck late
Players running over breaks
If you have a player or pair of players running over breaks, they just dropped for that round and get a draw score if they do happen to show up for round 3. Starting late sucks, having rounds shortened and goign home really late really sucks after spending 8+ hours in a packed store with a ton of other gamers and by now everybody is covered in Gamer funk.
I dont want people to think I am just rambling and ranting to rant. I enjoy myself at most of the tournaments I have attended. I love my local stores FTW Games and The Game Vault and fully believe in supporting both of them as it helps the local economy and gives me and my friends a place to play.
Support your local stores
Support your favorite games
Support your gaming community
and most of all, have some good CLEAN fun
Monday, December 19, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Restoring old Crons
today I am delving into something which annoys me, bugs me, drives me absolutely insane, and in all honesty needs to be answered. a Friend of mine plays Necrons. He just got his new codex and through some trading he got some very damaged Warriors, a monolith ,a banged up tomb spyder....errrrr....canoptek spyder, and a bunch of scarabs.
The scarabs are in decent shape, not really too much you can do to screw those up. the warriors...... not so much. The guy had about half of them crawling on the ground and the other half standing. Ok, so about 30 warriors just became trash. The Spyder is missing 2 legs. Easy enough to fix at a later date. We finally reach the monolith. This thing is beyond ugly. The walls are so poorly put together that you can look through it from one corner to the other, the crystal is messed up, the gateway is pretty well mauled, this thing was toast when I got my hands on it. I was able to pop out all the clear green pieces and take the entire monolith apart to rebuild it. The edges on the pieces all had to be shaved and sanded and then after it was assembled Green Stuff had to be used to fill any slight gaps and get a true squareness to the outer edges of the body again. The crystal had a giant gap in it and all the sides were pretty well messed up, so some more Green stuff and a lot of sanding and it is the right shape again. The crystal was primed, painted Snot green and using a mixture of snot and scorpion green now has the look of lightning running through the crystal. The gateway will probably get the same treatment and finally the monolith is probably going to be black with scorpion green in the crevices and metallics where appropriate with a 'ardcoat finish......
All of that rambling though brings me to my point. Why didnt GW just opt for either solid colored pieces for the crystal, gateway, green tubes and so forth, especially given the fact that now the different necron dyntasties appear to use different colors. I understand that the argument cant be made of "well they didnt know they were going to do that" Ok, I will concede that point, but what about just some good ole replacement parts being made available. I mean honestly, I am sure that if they were to sell just a ton of green tubes, the crystal, and gate for a monolith you wouldnt see some of the hack jobs that exist out there now on these things after they have been painted over about 10 times.
Well anyway, I think with the rise of the necrons as it were they should explore the options of releasing a monolith crystal and tube kit simply because there will be a number of Monoliths on the secondary market changing hands and quite frankly I would rather be in the market to make some money off the secondary market and people attempting to restore the broken down monliths they get in trades instead of sitting on the sideline offering only the full kit for peple to purchase. I guess the only kind of comparison I can make is this. While GW doesnt really want to support a secondary market to repair broken down models as much as just sell new ones, Car manufacturers dont really want to do it either. They do though because to not do it makes it much easier for aftermarket companies to step in and fill the void and make a profit on someting you developed in the first place if you dont make parts available, or has GW not learned its lesson from the Thunderwolf Cavalry.
The scarabs are in decent shape, not really too much you can do to screw those up. the warriors...... not so much. The guy had about half of them crawling on the ground and the other half standing. Ok, so about 30 warriors just became trash. The Spyder is missing 2 legs. Easy enough to fix at a later date. We finally reach the monolith. This thing is beyond ugly. The walls are so poorly put together that you can look through it from one corner to the other, the crystal is messed up, the gateway is pretty well mauled, this thing was toast when I got my hands on it. I was able to pop out all the clear green pieces and take the entire monolith apart to rebuild it. The edges on the pieces all had to be shaved and sanded and then after it was assembled Green Stuff had to be used to fill any slight gaps and get a true squareness to the outer edges of the body again. The crystal had a giant gap in it and all the sides were pretty well messed up, so some more Green stuff and a lot of sanding and it is the right shape again. The crystal was primed, painted Snot green and using a mixture of snot and scorpion green now has the look of lightning running through the crystal. The gateway will probably get the same treatment and finally the monolith is probably going to be black with scorpion green in the crevices and metallics where appropriate with a 'ardcoat finish......
All of that rambling though brings me to my point. Why didnt GW just opt for either solid colored pieces for the crystal, gateway, green tubes and so forth, especially given the fact that now the different necron dyntasties appear to use different colors. I understand that the argument cant be made of "well they didnt know they were going to do that" Ok, I will concede that point, but what about just some good ole replacement parts being made available. I mean honestly, I am sure that if they were to sell just a ton of green tubes, the crystal, and gate for a monolith you wouldnt see some of the hack jobs that exist out there now on these things after they have been painted over about 10 times.
Well anyway, I think with the rise of the necrons as it were they should explore the options of releasing a monolith crystal and tube kit simply because there will be a number of Monoliths on the secondary market changing hands and quite frankly I would rather be in the market to make some money off the secondary market and people attempting to restore the broken down monliths they get in trades instead of sitting on the sideline offering only the full kit for peple to purchase. I guess the only kind of comparison I can make is this. While GW doesnt really want to support a secondary market to repair broken down models as much as just sell new ones, Car manufacturers dont really want to do it either. They do though because to not do it makes it much easier for aftermarket companies to step in and fill the void and make a profit on someting you developed in the first place if you dont make parts available, or has GW not learned its lesson from the Thunderwolf Cavalry.
Monday, December 5, 2011
What the Fudge?
I was poking around last night and:
1 Squad Vanilla Marines, 4 missile Launchers with a Las Plas Razorback is 225, 75 for the Razorback and 150 for the Squad
1 long Fangs Squad, 4 Missile Launchers with a Las Plas Razorback is 190m 75 for the Razorback and 115 for squad
Special Rules and Equipment
Long Fangs have Acute Senses, TSKNF, Counter Attack, Fire Control
The can re roll night fighting distances, if the pass ld when being assaulted the have +1 attack each, your normal TSKNF for Marines and if the Sgt doesn't shoot can split fire between two targets
Space Marines Have TSKNF, Signum
Standard TSKNF for Marines, If the Sgt doesn't shoot one guy can shoot at BS5
Statlines
LF - Vanilla Marine, 1 Better Ld
LF Sgt - Vanilla Marine, 1 Better Ld, 1 Better Attacks
SMD - Vanilla Marine
SMD Sgt - Vanilla Marine, 1 Better Ld, 1 Better Attacks
Wow!, what a way to make foot based anti-tank so unpopular for the Space marines. You have guys who cost on average 30 points for the vanilla marines with only 1 real special ability, the capability for one guy to shoot on a bs of 5, compared to guys who cost an average of 23 points who have a higher leadership, can see better at night, and can split fire between 2 targets if their sgt doesn't shoot. How is that fair?
In all honesty I have a friend who is really interested in playing Marines. I don't think the whole runes and wolves appeals to him so much, to my fiance, yes it does, but to me, no. Anyway. He has seen the effectiveness of the LasPlas razorback in Space Wolf lists, he likes the vehicles, just don't think he is into the runic Celtic-American Indian-viking vibe the SWs give off. So, here is my conundrum. I want to get him something nice for Christmas (Las Plas Razorback). I understand I will have to build the turret, ok, completely doable, but I don't want him to look at it then look at the points costs of the Devastators and say "ouch man, why is your lady's Long Fangs sooo much better then my Devastators at almost a third of the cost?"
I know, your saying well why doesn't he just use the Razorback to run some scoring guys around anyway? well, in time I am sure there will be enough of them to do it. Until then though, the setup supports Devastators really well and he likes Devastators, so who am I to argue?
So, unless AB is wrong (I would verify the points costs though my SW codex but it is in a box somewhere still not unpacked yet) I smell a conspiracy to get the boys in blue to run with Whirlwinds and Land Raiders all day long.
1 Squad Vanilla Marines, 4 missile Launchers with a Las Plas Razorback is 225, 75 for the Razorback and 150 for the Squad
1 long Fangs Squad, 4 Missile Launchers with a Las Plas Razorback is 190m 75 for the Razorback and 115 for squad
Special Rules and Equipment
Long Fangs have Acute Senses, TSKNF, Counter Attack, Fire Control
The can re roll night fighting distances, if the pass ld when being assaulted the have +1 attack each, your normal TSKNF for Marines and if the Sgt doesn't shoot can split fire between two targets
Space Marines Have TSKNF, Signum
Standard TSKNF for Marines, If the Sgt doesn't shoot one guy can shoot at BS5
Statlines
LF - Vanilla Marine, 1 Better Ld
LF Sgt - Vanilla Marine, 1 Better Ld, 1 Better Attacks
SMD - Vanilla Marine
SMD Sgt - Vanilla Marine, 1 Better Ld, 1 Better Attacks
Wow!, what a way to make foot based anti-tank so unpopular for the Space marines. You have guys who cost on average 30 points for the vanilla marines with only 1 real special ability, the capability for one guy to shoot on a bs of 5, compared to guys who cost an average of 23 points who have a higher leadership, can see better at night, and can split fire between 2 targets if their sgt doesn't shoot. How is that fair?
In all honesty I have a friend who is really interested in playing Marines. I don't think the whole runes and wolves appeals to him so much, to my fiance, yes it does, but to me, no. Anyway. He has seen the effectiveness of the LasPlas razorback in Space Wolf lists, he likes the vehicles, just don't think he is into the runic Celtic-American Indian-viking vibe the SWs give off. So, here is my conundrum. I want to get him something nice for Christmas (Las Plas Razorback). I understand I will have to build the turret, ok, completely doable, but I don't want him to look at it then look at the points costs of the Devastators and say "ouch man, why is your lady's Long Fangs sooo much better then my Devastators at almost a third of the cost?"
I know, your saying well why doesn't he just use the Razorback to run some scoring guys around anyway? well, in time I am sure there will be enough of them to do it. Until then though, the setup supports Devastators really well and he likes Devastators, so who am I to argue?
So, unless AB is wrong (I would verify the points costs though my SW codex but it is in a box somewhere still not unpacked yet) I smell a conspiracy to get the boys in blue to run with Whirlwinds and Land Raiders all day long.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Ard Boyz 2011
I made it to the second round of the Ard Boyz this year. This is a short wrap up of the second round as I didnt do one for the first.
I played at the Game Vault this year in the second round. I know I hae mentioned it before but it is a great store and if there is anyone coming by Fredericksburg they should swing by. I digress.
First of all my army going into round 2 consisted of:
I played at the Game Vault this year in the second round. I know I hae mentioned it before but it is a great store and if there is anyone coming by Fredericksburg they should swing by. I digress.
First of all my army going into round 2 consisted of:
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