Went to on a trip and now stuck at home!

Hi everyone.

Sorry for the lack of posts. We went on a trip out of the country and now are stuck at home. After I get my work together expect quite a few posts once I start painting!

Justin

Slight Delay, D&D and Adeptus Titanticus

A Slight delay but plenty of games played.

Typically, I am trying to make a lengthy blog post at least once a week on Sunday. This week, however, I had a slight delay because…. I was playing games. I hope you can forgive me, but to me at least, that seems like a pretty good excuse.

On Thursday we wrapped up the Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign that I have been playing in. The DM saw it fit to add a final last fight against one of the pirate princes and it was pretty comical. The pirate prince had undead whales. We managed to polymorph one, but it in a bag of holding, then air drop it onto the pirate prince’s ship. I don’t think he expected that. After that the aliens invaded… If you have played this adventure or the classic adventures upon which it is based, you may not recognize any of this. That’s because its not the in book, our DM added quite a bit to do with the pirate princes and aliens. A lot of us are very busy for the next few weeks and we have not decided whether to switch to new characters or continue with our ninth level characters. Either way I am sure we will pick these characters up again. 

This week I ran D&D on Friday and it is likely the last game we will get to play for a while. I am teaching a lot and the stress of writing and running a campaign is just a little too much over midterms. I think its important for a DM to recognize when the time sink is becoming a bit too much and be honest with their players. So, for a while I am going to get ahead on writing adventures and play some board games. A few players have already mentioned they will DM as well.

On Sunday I played two games of Adeptus Titanticus. The first was a very small game against a new player. I wanted to try out the rules for Space Marines that I had written. I took all marines including: 2 bases of marines with bolters, 2 bases of marines with melta guns, 2 rhinos, and 2 land raiders. I ave my opponent a single Warhound with a Plasma Blast Gun and a Vulcan Heavy Bolter. We played the retrieval mission. Long story short the warhound demolished the marines, killing one land raider turn 1, then turning to destroy the rhinos and marines as they closed on the objective. Eventually after a round or two of a showdown the Warhound put the final structure on point on the Land Raider. Overall, I was happy that the Warhound dismantled the marine as I would not want them to be able to threaten titans directly. They did make a run at the objective (which is what I designed them to do). Here are some pictures from that game:

After that short game my regular opponent and I played a 2000 point game. When we play we use a variation of the matched play rules. One of us designs the mission and sets up terrain while they other player chooses what side of the mission to play. In this case I designed a balanced mission in which we played Engage and Destroy with the secondary from a different mission (the one where you hold table quarters for 3 points each). I took my new Nemesis Warbringer, a Warlord, a warhound, two Reavers, and three knight lancers. My opponent took a Warlord, two Reavers, two Warhounds, three regular knights, and two lancers. During the course of the game we did screw up the effects of the quake cannon (as per the new errata), but otherwise this was a great game. I learned that the new Nemesis Warbringer is extremely tough, as it took a ton of punishment. Eventually it was killed, and I killed a Reaver, and the resulting explosion killed another Warhound. As per normal all of the knights were killed during the course of the game. I barely won, a rarity in that game for me, but it was a solid whacky game. Here are some pictures:

Finally, we play-tested my board game twice. Only 150 something more plays to go. More on that later.

This Thursday we are going to try out the remake of the Dune board game and I am really excited so I will post some pictures of that later this week.

Justin

Painting old Epic marines for Adeptus Titanticus and Rules!

Got some hobby time today... and it resulted in this

Then I decided to draft up some rules and quickly came up with this. I hope to try them out soon.

Rules for Space Marines for AT

Largely, infantry and Space Marines follow the rules for knights and adhere to the rules for knights. Space Marines are grouped into units of the same type of model. They can get the same orders, and move and act in the same way. Essentially if you read the rules for knights, and replace the word banner with the word unit, and the word knight with the word model or base of infantry, then the knight rules work well for units of space marines. 

General Rule: 

Insignificant: Infantry, Rhinos, and Land Raiders do not stop the movement of any titan Scale 5 or larger. Titans may walk over these models. If the end their movement on top of one of these models simply move the insignificant model out from under the titans base by the shortest route possible. If there is debate about where the model should end up the owning player makes the decision.  

Space Marine Infantry

A unit of Space Marine infantry consists of 2-4 bases, which cost 10 points each.

Scale: 1  10 points per base

Ballistic Skill 3+  Weapon Skill 3+

Speed 6”  Command 4+

Power Armor

Infantry Bases	Attack Strength
	1-3	4+
1-4	4+	-

Direct hit 4-6, Devastating Hit 7-9, Critical Hit 10+  Structure Points 2:  0  0

Agile: Infantry Bases may move through difficult terrain with no penalty.

Cover Seeking: While in difficult terrain subtract two from all armor rolls against them.

Transportable: If they start their turn within 3” of a unit with transport, they my board the unit. Remove the infantry from the table and note that they are within the transport. They may disembark entirely within 3” of a transport at the start of their activation.

Weapons

Bolters-

Range Short 0-3” Acc -

               Long 3”-6” Acc -1

Dice 1 Strength 1

Traits: Rapid  

Close combat weapons

Short 1”

Long –

Str 1  Dice 2

Special rule for Close combat weapons-If attacking a titan in melee infantry may only ever target the legs. 

Options

If the squad numbers 2 or less bases they can be given the meltagun trait for 15 pts per base. (See Questoris Support Banner sheet). In total, only half the bases you have in your force may have meltaguns.

Rhinos

A unit of Rhinos consists of 1 to 2 Rhinos. You must assign each squad of rhinos to a space marine infantry unit that it has the ability to carry. Those marines may start the game in those Rhinos.

Scale: 2 15 points per rhino

Ballistic Skill 3+  Weapon Skill 5+

Speed 12”  Command 4+

Rhino Armor

Rhinos	Attack Strength
	1-5	6+
1-2	4+	-

Direct hit  6-8 Devastating Hit 9-11, Critical Hit 12+  Structure Points 2:  0  0

Agile: Rhinos may move through difficult terrain with no penalty, but cannot enter building or go on top off something taller than itself. I.e. no Rhinos on buildings. 

Transports: Each Rhino may transport 2 bases of space marine infantry.

Weapons

Twin Bolters

Range Short 0-3” Acc +1

               Long 3”-6” Acc –

Dice 1 Strength 1

Traits: Rapid  

Land Raiders

A unit of Land Raiders consists of 1 to 2 Land Raiders. You may  assign each squad of Land Raiders to a space marine infantry that it has the ability to carry. The marines may start the game in the Land Raiders.

Scale: 2 50 points per Land Raider

Ballistic Skill 3+  Weapon Skill 5+

Speed 10”  Command 4+

Land Raider Armor

Land Raiders	Attack Strength
	1-7	8+
1-2	4+	-

Direct hit  10-13 Devastating Hit 14-16, Critical Hit 1+  Structure Points 3:  0  0  0

Agile: Land Raiders may move through difficult terrain with no penalty, but cannot enter building or go on top off something taller than itself. I.e. no Land Raiders on buildings. 

Transports: Each Land Raider may transport 2 bases of space marine infantry.

Weapons

Twin Heavy Bolters

Range Short 0-6” Acc -

               Long 6”-10” Acc -1

Dice 1 Strength 2

Traits: Rapid  

2 Twin Laser Cannons

Range Short 0-6” Acc -

Long 6”-12” Acc - 

Dice 4 Strength 6

Casual 40k

Warhammer 40k casual event and not as much gaming as I’d like

Sadly, I did not get to game as much this week as I typically like to. I played some Commander Friday night and tried out my new Kess deck (https://edhrec.com/commanders/kess-dissident-mage). I mostly made this deck out of cards I had lying around, with the addition to some cards I picked up at That’s Entertainment! in Worcester. It is certainly not a top-level deck, but it is fun. I think she really allows you to use instant and sorceries to great effect even in a game of Commander. I will work on getting the decklist up at some point. I also go to play a single game with my new Simic deck (listed in a previous post), and it continued to do quite well.

This Saturday, a local store, The Armoury, had a casual 40k gaming event. I don’t really have a 40k list that I really like at the moment, so I played a weird version of Imperial Soup, seen here:

Imperial Guard- Cadians

Company Commander with command point returning warlord trait, and relic

Aradia Madellan Psyker character

10 guard X 3

Mechanicus Stygies VIII

Tech Priest

Tech Priest

5 Rangers

7 Rangers

5 Vanguard with 2 Plasma Calivers

3 Dragoons

1 Onager with neutron laser

Knights House Krast

Armiger with meltagun X 2

Knight Errant with fist, better missile launcher, and relic giving it a 2+ save

               This was not really a competitive list, but I had it all painted, so I figured why not?

I played two games, one against a mixed force of Iron hands and Mechanicus. This was a fun game and, I ended up winning. I was impressed with marines could do even without all of their abilities (as when they are allied they lose many of their abilities). Here are some highlight pictures:

After that I played against an Ork army. I ended up losing this game, but it was very close. My opponent simply had too many Orks! Here are some pictures from that one:

I did get a chance to make new draft of the board for my board game. I'll say more about this later and I need to work on making it more artistically pleasing, but I think this is fine start:

Justin

Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good Review

Over the weekend, at the previously mentioned AOS tourney, I picked up a lot of products one of my local FLGS’s (Friendly Local Game Store). One of the products I picked up was the new 40k book in the Psychic Awakening series, The Greater Good.

Before giving my brief review, I feel like I have to tell you that I am also a Craftworlds player and picked up the original Psychic Awakening book for the various Eldar factions, and honestly, I found it very lacking. This book, The Greater Good, is much better. I am not a Tau player, at the moment, but the options in here looked solid. The new rules for Shadowsun are stellar, and even seeing those rules got me thinking about building a Tau army again. That being said, I will stay the course, as my current goal is to build an Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard for you old folks) force. As I said the Tau options seemed solid, but one slight disappointment is that a major portion of the Tau section is comprised of “The Eight” for the Farsight Enclaves. They didn’t seem that different than the rules that I got in this year’s Chapter Approved, so I kinda feel like they sold me those rules twice.

That being said, if you are an Astra Militarum player then this book is for you. It adds a few stratagems that help struggling unit (looking at your sentinels), but the real winners here are the Tempestus (Latin for Stormtroopers) and tanks. This book adds tank aces, which are special abilities you can give to tanks in your army. You can take a tank ace ability in lieu of your warlord trait, but don’t. You can also get one by spending command points. Some of these are really solid and shockingly you can take them on artillery as well as the Leman Russ variants. After this section the Tempestus get a whole section to themselves where they get regimental special rules, warlord traits, relics, and stratagems. These are stellar and if you have any Tempestus this is a must have. The second I saw these I went from a planned 15 Tempestus in my army to 30.  Surprisingly, but awesomely, is the fact that there are stratagems for fleet commanders, and Valkyries in this section as well (and they are very good). The only sticking point is that to get access to these you have to have a detachment with only Tempestus (and the navy units). So, if you like Tempestus and Valkyries this book is a must have. Kind in mind, however, that the fleet commander and Valk’s have to be in the detachment with the Tempestus to use the stratagems. That being said, this is easily done.

I honestly, did not pay much attention to the Genestealer Cult rules in here, as they are still doing really well in the meta, so if you came here for my opinion on those, please accept my apologies. I’d rather just admit that I don’t know much about the army instead of giving you a badly informed opinion.

I’ll try to do a few more quick reviews from time to time.

In other news, I wrote this while taking a break from making my board game map/board. I am hoping to have a prototype soon….

Justin

AOS tourney and D&D

Age of Sigmar Tournament and the Big Saltmarsh Fight

This week I played a game of D&D and played in a Warhammer: Age of Sigmar tournament.

I have had the rare pleasure to actually play a D&D campaign where I am not the Dungeon Master. Once you establish yourself as the local DM it is hard to get others to take up the mantle (and associated work) of running a game. Luckily for me, my best friend did exactly that, and myself and two other folks have had the pleasure of playing through Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Last Thursday, we did one of, if not the final, big fight, and barely pulled it off. Our party is not optimized in any sense of the word. We have a drunken monk (with a single level in cleric), a storm sorcerer, and my character Felech “Gale” who is a Rogue level 5, Fighter level 3. So, if you are keeping track at home, that means we have no dedicated healer. Essentially, we are three glass cannons running around trying to kill things before they kill us. Mechanics aside we have a great time with, and I think all three players have come to really like our characters. The new Saltmarsh campaign is really fun, and it somehow maintains the flavor of original D&D adventures (i.e. really hard fights and traps that are nearly impossible to avoid), but still seems in line with the core of what 5^th edition D&D is. My only warning (not a complaint mind you) are that many of the encounters in the adventure are unapologetically difficult, so if you don’t have players that know the game well, be advised. Also, I think this was Kate Welch’s (of C Team fame) first project with WOTC and it is clear from playing it that she did a great job.

As promised, I will give you a full report on the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar tourney this weekend (yesterday) at the Bolter Hole. We only had a turn out of 4 people, likely due to it being the day after Valentine’s Day. Honestly though, this was good for me, as we only had to have two rounds, and it meant that I could let me games go on without a time constraint. I went 0-2 but was not disappointed in the least as I got to play against two experience players and felt like I held my own both times. The first game was against a Legion of Grief army (which is one of the many undead factions). I was really impressed by how many times the undead can bring their units back, as I killed one unit three times. Mostly, I learned that I need get to their summoning terrain and kill the monsters, necromancers and what not. I also really liked how he used some old toys to add flavor to his army. Here are couple of pictures from the game. The Bolter Hole has great terrain, so be sure to look at all the well painted old Empire style buildings!

The second game was kinda of a butt whopping, but the player was way more experienced than me, and gave me first turn, then got 2^nd and 3^rd turn. This is a thing that can happen in AOS because you roll for turn order at the end of each round. With his in your face Slaves of Darkness list (new terms for Chaos warriors) it really allowed him to crush both my flanks. That being said it is a thing that can happen in AOS, so I need to learn to prepare for it. By the end I had killed most of his units, but he had killed everything I had. One of the best parts of this game was the we played on a cool Chaos board, so it looked great.

Overall, both my opponents were great players and I learned a lot. I was glad that it was a small tourney and I feel much better prepared for the next AOS event. I am also glad I got the 1500 pts fully painted for the event I have a pretty good idea about what I want to get to finish up the army. I think I am going to buy a phoenix and put a Freeguild (new word for Empire) rider on it. I am waiting for the re-release of the High Elves (now called Lumineth) later this year. Link here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/02/10/the-lumineth-lowdown-part-2-spear-phalanxes-and-runic-symbolismgw-homepage-post-2/ It seems strange to say, but at the moment, I think I like AOS better than 40k.

I have made a lot of progress on my first D&D adventure this month and I have completed the layout. I found a free open source program to do this with and it is working out great. I highly recommend Scribus over Publisher for this kind of work. I am looking forward to finishing it and having it up on DrivethruRPG. Also, I got a single test game of my boardgame in with my wife and she liked it as well. So now I only have 105 test games to go!

Justin

Writing Games and back to action!

After many years I am firing this thing back up!

Recently, I have been thinking about writing games, since I play games with nearly all my free time. I have noticed the that my Indy Game writing hero (looking at you Joseph M. http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.com/) has a blog, so I better make one too.

For those of you who don't know, I am an anthropologist and I am adjunct professor at a couple local universities in the Rhode Island region. I went to graduate school in Washington State where I gamed with Da Momma's Boyz. I play pretty much any game I can find people to play with including but not limited to: 40k, AOS, 5th edition D&D, Adeptus Titanicus, Rangers of Shadowdeep, Frostgrave, Necromunda, Dragon/Lion Rampant, Magic, Netrunner, and crap ton of board games (most recent acquisitions are Twilight Imperium 4th edition and Gaia Project).

So without further ado, I want to get to the focus of this blog, which is to show you what I have been painting and playing, along with the games I am actually working on.

Last night I played 3 games of Splendor (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148228/splendor) with good friends and good bourbon(which is this Kentucky Boy's opinion is the best way to play games). If you haven't played Splendor it is a wonderful, chill, game. First, there are no dice, and the only randomness are the cards and resources that are available. I.e. the randomness in the game almost always affects all the players, and not just one. There is one exception to this, but it is a somewhat rarely used strategy. Its strengths and weaknesses are actually that same, in that you literally only act on your turn and player interaction is limited to taking the cards or resources that other folks want.  This is a strength because you can be drinking, talking, and interacting while still getting the full effect of the game. Its only a slight weakness, in that player interaction is limited. That is not to say that you cannot have a silent, intense game of Splendor. You can, it will be intense, and that will also result in a fun experience. So if you are looking for either one of those game experiences, I'd recommend it highly.

Second up in my gaming for this week was a couple games of commander (Magic) with a great friend. I was soundly beaten both times, but they were both interesting games. If you are unfamiliar with the Commander format (also sometimes still called EDH, standing for Elder Dragon Highlander) check out this link https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/commander-format.

At any rate, my favorite deck, at the moment, is commanded by Raff Capashen (decklist here https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/raff-i-play-on-your-turn/). Basically, its all about casting cards at instant speed and playing on my opponents turn. The goal of this being I gather as much information about what my opponent is up to, and then, typically, use all my mana on your turn to cast spells. It's fun, but I need a stronger win condition. The second deck I used is a simic, Kraken, merfolk, serpent deck seen here (https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/simic-merfolks-octupus-krakens-oh-my/). It should be noted that this link leads to the decklist I want to own, and this is not quite what I played the other evening. It had a great start, in that I had a simic sky swallower down on turn 4. I am still working on this deck for sure, and did get beaten, but I am excited to finish this one and play it in the future.

I also got some Netrunner and Magic in with a friend earlier in the week and was soundly beaten at both. I think I am going to invest in the new Netrunner block found here: https://nisei.net/. More about Netrunner later.

Third up, I have been frantically working on getting my AOS (Age of Sigmar the game Warhammer fantasy became) army painted up for an upcoming tournament at the Bolter Hole, which is one of my favorite FLGS's (friendly local game store) (https://thebolterhole.com/).

The tourney is 1500 points and I recently acquired a Cities of Sigmar list via trade. The army was well base coated, so painting it have proven quick and easy. Is it the best looking army ever? No, not by a long shot. But, I did paint it in around a month, so I have that going for me. Now I just need to figure out how to play it...

Here is the list:

Cities of Sigmar- Hallowheart

Battlemage- General with Veteran of the Blazing Crusade
Spells: Sear Wounds and Warding Brand

Battlemage- Adjutant
Spells: Ignite Weapons and Roaming Wildfire

Freeguild General

Freeguild General

Luminark of Hysh, with battlemage-with artifact that gives 4+ ward save versus mortal wounds
Spells: Sear Wounds and Roaming Wildfire

20 Free guild Spear-full command

20 Free guild sword-full command

10 Free Guild sword-standard and champ

10 Free Guild Greatswords

5 Free Guild Outriders

5 Sisters of the Thorn
Spells: Roaming Wildfire and Elemental Cyclone

Balewind Vortex endless spell

around 1500 points

Army in Progress on cluttered table

I will provide a report on how soundly I got beaten next week.

I also, play in and run D&D campaigns. In one I play as Felech "Gale", Captain of the Sea Weasel and "First Spear of Lizardton". We are playing through the Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign with only 3 PC's and no healer. Many Hi-jinks ensue. More on that later.

Finally, and most importantly, I have been developing some game content of my own. I have two major projects going. The first is a series of adventures for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. The first one is nearly completely written and has been play tested. Here is the gist of it:

As a test before the party is allowed full guild privileges, they are asked to complete a contract with one of the Guild’s more eccentric employers. A Sunken tower lies off the coast and this client has the means to get at its treasures. This adventure is meant for 1^st-3^rd level player characters (henceforth PC’s) and has an appendix which aids the dungeon master is in scaling the difficulty up for larger parties.

To show how serious about this I am, I am working with my friend and artist, Vic. He recently sent me some of the art he is working on for the adventure and I think it looks great. This is the concept art for a NPC in the adventure, named Bertrim Weaver


It goes without saying that this piece of art is original work by Vic so please don't steal it.  I think it's awesome.

Licensed under the creative commons 2020: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR0YePwx-kcPItmKysQaQpN9lIUl4DRI3bEN-a2ZcYDMymhr-lGeEuaehgI

The second project is a dice-less board game at that is has been in the back of my mind for quite some time. My friends have played it, and it seems to be decently well liked. I hope to do a kickstarter for it this summer, but it needs to be thoroughly play-tested. I will say it has no dice, is small enough to be very portable, and you get to build your own faction's strengths and weaknesses each time you play.

That is all I have for this week folks. See you next week.

Justin