NC Gunbunnies Blog

Posted By possiblyarobot on January 27, 2013

The shutdown of Lost Hemisphere and a general lack of things to do has inspired me to catch up our loyal one or two readers on goings on since the last post.

Going way, WAY back, I realized I had not posted any updates from Food Machine (the last tournament of `12). So, here our a few bits for your enjoyment:

The blurry scene from my Tournament Organizer Spot

Our glorious trophy

Our winner, enjoying a NOM

So, why the long wait in between updates? Well, people gots sh*t to do, yo. For instance, earlier in the month a small group of us enjoyed a game day at Atomic Empire….

Which also happened to be a Furry meetup. Who knew.

January was also Illogicon. Here was the view on the balcony leading to the GM food room:

And here was my view for the rest of the Con:

Unfortunately, our presence went mostly unnoticed at Illogicon. For those of you unfamiliar with Illogicon it’s a smaller Scifi (and in tiny subprint, Fantasy) convention that occurs in various locals throughout Raleigh each year. The standard staples of a retail room, Author panels, various social meetup groups and a gameroom were all present. We were placed in the very back of the game room, so if one was not already aware of our existence, one had to stumble upon us purely by accident. This, of course, is why there were only 2 WarmaHordes demos for the entirety of the Saturday I was present.

It didn’t help that we were in the darkest corner, either. It could be a very nifty convention to have around. The group who recreates Stormtrooper and other replica armor is neat. There’s surely a market for such a convention but I don’t think there was enough marketing or hype this time around, though.

Scarab happened on the 18th through the 21st in SC. I’ll leave it to those who were there to do any commenting.
And finally, this past Saturday was a maxed-out steamroller at Hanger 18.

Coming up for the Triangle:

February 17th is an Unexpected Allies tournament at Atomic Empire.
Spring Fever (wargaming convention) is March 8th through the 10th.
March 23rd is a steamroller at Endless Gaming.

Eleswhere in the world:

Templecon is February 1st through the 3rd.
Con-Nooga is March 1st through the 3rd.

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Posted By possiblyarobot on December 12, 2012

I’m specifically avoiding looking at in-faction synergies simply because those depths have been plunged time and time again. Rarely is a new model released that isn’t instantly dissected and all possible faction combinations applied by the end of the day; which is why last time I spoke on Mercs. Far fewer people play the faction. There’s still math do be done!

This time I’ll focus on Minions. I won’t bother with Gatormen simply because Gatormen are good on their own, without any sort of buffing or model pairing. Anything you do to Gatormen makes them that much better. Instead, we’ll focus on their slimier cousins the Bog Trogs.

On their own, their stats aren’t all that bad: average SPD of 5 and Reach, decent DEF of 12/16/18 with Camo and with an ARM of 14 they have good odds of surviving most blast rolls.  They’re MAT 6 or 8 on a charge. For damage output they aren’t too terrible at POW 11 and they can scale this up with Combined Melee to deal with higher ARM targets.

One of their neater abilities, which also works against them, is Ambush. They can pop out late-game to go for an objective. Unfortunately, most Hordes factions have very little in the way of spell Arcing so a warlock will have to be near the edge they come into play from.

So, who to take them with?  pDoomshapers, Calandra, pGrissel, pLyleth, pThagrosh, Rhyas, Saeryn, Absylonia, Kallus, Bethayne, Grayle, Cassius pKreuger, and Mohsar can keep them alive longer or increase their damage output. Skorne adores minions. Of all the Hordes factions they are the most minion friendly. In fact, they have a solo devoted to minions. pMakeda, p/eHexeris, Xerxis, Zaal, Mordikaar, Rasheth and Naaresh all play well with Minions (more on this in episode 3).

There is, however, a set of interactions that provide synergy, and are quite strange indeed. pBaldur has a spell called rapid growth which creates a 4″ forest in his control area. If one was trying to control an objective, a forest can be placed next to the objective to provide what the Bog-Trogs need to trigger Camo. If one also took Lanyssa Ryssyl, she can stand in the forest (gaining stealth from Prowl) cast hunters mark on a target, and Trogs (no longer needing line of sight) can charge 10″ through the forest at the marked target.

One could combine eMadrak’s Blood Fury with Pendrake’s Beastlore for a unit with Reach, CMA, Pathfinder, MAT 8 + 3D6 to hit warbeasts and 4D6 +POW 11+ x on a 7″ charge.

You could do a similar combo with Kriel warriors, but you need a Fellcaller for Pathfinder which adds on 3 pts making them more expensive than the Trogs. Fennblades have a bigger threat range and slightly more survivability with Tough but you still need the Fellcaller and they’re MAT 6 with no CMA. However, Borka’s feat does give friendly faction models +2″ movement and with Lanyssa that’s a SPD + 7″ charge.

And I just know Circle players will be all “But I could just take Wolves of Orboros. They have the same abilities and a UA. Myeah.”

Oh yeah? Well do they have fins?

Category: Hordes, Tactics | Comments Off
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Posted By possiblyarobot on December 4, 2012

Round 2:

Jacob beats Clint

Andy vs Keith ? (I’ll follow up once I have my laptop)

Tyler beats Liam

A problem occurred during round 2 in the Tyler v Liam match. I don’t have templates created for zone control maps in Steamroller. As a stopgap, I use MKI merc tokens and give people the diameters of the control zones. I got away with this when I covered for Chris, but the token was moved during their match without their knowledge. When Liam placed Tiberius with radius of the token to contest the zone. When the token was bumped again and they had me place it back and low-and-behold Tiberius was well out of the zone causing Tyler to immediately win by control points as the only ruling I could come up with at the time was to play it as it was. We will never know how the next turn would have ended. It was only later, after talking with tabnti, that he pointed I could have ruled that Tiberius be placed within range on the token as both players knew the model was within range.

So, I feel like my bad planning affected the outcome of the tournament. To prevent that from happening again, I’m breaking a previous New Year’s Resolution to not make any more resolutions and for 2013, I well have semi permanent templates for Steamroller.

The Final round resulted in a triple win for Tyler earning him the coveted golden can award. Liam won second and Andy took third. Best painted unit was chosen by Crystal Blanton and it also went to Tyler for his Greylord Ternions.

We collected 451 canned goods with donations not only from the players but visits by Bjorkgnu and Kill4koin as well as the Blantons.

Liam Piver had the highest donation count with 150 cans, follwed closely by Clint with 125.

Category: Cary, Charity, Events, Recaps, Updates | 2 Comments »
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Posted By possiblyarobot on December 1, 2012

Liam beats Keith
Tyler beats Clint
Andy beats Jacob

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Posted By possiblyarobot on December 1, 2012

Howdy Folks,

Just posting an update for our Foodmachine event. We have 6 players: Liam (Skorne), Andy (Legion), Jacob (Khador), Keith (Khador), Tyler (Skorne) and Clint (Cygnar and 1 Deathjack).

We’ve collected 358 cans so far and the players are now setting up.

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Posted By possiblyarobot on November 12, 2012

Hidy Ho neighbors, PG Possiblyarobot here. Some of you have seen me around, some of you have soundly trounced me game after game, and some of you have even asked rules questions from me.

I started a bit over 3 years ago playing Cygnar, then moved to Menoth, Menoth/Skorne, Menoth/Legion, Ret/Legion, Ret/Skorne, Ret/Skorne/Mercs/Khador, and now I’m sitting comfortably with Skorne/Mercs/Khador. Who knows what my Warmachine lineup will look like two years from now.

I’ve played broken lists, instant win lists, not so broken lists, who-the-heck-would-play-that lists and lost soundly with all of them, even managed to win a few. One would think being a living index of game rules would make one a master player. Sadly, knowing the rules inside and out and applying them to effect do not go hand in hand.

I cannot tell you how to win, outside of “kill the other person’s Warnoun”.
I can, however, tell you some of the quirkier rule interactions to help you along the way. All that being said, Strange Synergies is my attempt to analyze alternative strategies through rule interactions people may or may not have considered.

With the addition of Ranking Officers players gain new options for Mercs/Minions allowing those models access to in-faction buffs,spells and feats. But for now, let’s look at an interaction that has existed since Mark I with the Highborn Covenant.

Of all the bizarre combinations you can form, none come whackier (outside of league models) than Highborn lists. With Highborn, I can take 1 non-character unit of each of the following: Longgunners, Arcane Gun Mages, and Precursor Knights.

With the addition of General Ossrum, Highborn has access to Snipe, but also a Khadoran spell called Fire for Effect. This means, I get boosted attack and damage for my first RNG 14, POW 20 Longgunner shot, every turn. Suck it Cygnar.

More interestingly, I can put it on my Gun Mages. Boosted attack and damage for crit brutal? Sure. I could also throw snipe on them and they can always make a Thunder or Brutal shot. Gun Mages have access to Jack Marshal through their UA. Normally, they would take Cygnar jacks (being Cygnar models and all) but when in a Merc list, they get to take the Mule.

Most new players have not faced a Mule so let me break down the particulars: he’s range 8/12 depending on if he sacs his movement for an aiming bonus, AOE 4, POW 15 with Arcing Fire and Crit Devastation.

These 3 model combinations provide a ridiculous amount of possibilities:

Mule with Fire for Effect + Snipe Shot = Max RNG 16 3d6 to hit + Max 4d6 Damage rolls
Mule with Snipe + Crit Brutal = Max RNG 16, 3d6 to hit + Max 4d6 Damage rolls

While the best outcome is the same on the initial target, the difference is in what happens to those in the AOE if one misses, or fails to gain a critical: boosted blast damage with FFE vs a lousy POW 8 + 2d6 with snipe with possible Thunder movement. It also allows me to throw snipe on the unit in the first example, or FFE in the second.

Cygnar can get similarly ridiculous results with Gun Mages jack marshalling a Grenadier in base-to-base contact with any model with the word Trencher in its title. For the record, that’s a max of 3 RNG 10/14 POW 12 + 2/3/4d6 AOE 3″ shots with a RAT 8 + 2/3d6 to hit standing still. And you can jack marshal two of those!

Will 6 boosted pow 12 AOEs win you a game? I have no idea. But it sure would be fun to rain down arcane death from a comfy Dug In position.

In the next issue, we’ll cover… something else. Remember kiddies, think outside the bun and feel free to debate my observations in the forums.

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Posted By Lankira on June 2, 2012

In order to fully understand Level 7, one of the terms that needs to be defined is “transmedia”. Transmedia is, in its most basic  form, multiple media types being used to tell a single story. In the case of Level 7, so far, we, L&L attendees have seen a few types of media, but more may come. The goal is to have all of the forms of media, including games and films, come together to give the viewer/player the full story and experience.

Level 7 itself deals with modern UFO mythology and government conspiracies. Matt Wilson stated in the seminar that part of his goal with the original feature film script (more on that momentarily) for Level 7 was to give additional motivation to the aliens. Why are they here? Beyond, of course, the simple, one-dimensional explanations from existing mythologies: water, brains, kill us because they can, etc. So far, to tell this story, we have the text-based document from pages 10 and 11 in No Quarter 42, a short film (which was politely requested not be spoiled, as it will be available in a little over a week online), and a website that includes an audio interview. (more…)

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Posted By Lankira on June 2, 2012

Day one of Lock & Load Gamefest has been awesome to say the least. I have had quite a few adventures, not the least of which was the Concept to Table: Level 7 seminar I attended (see the next entry for more info on it).

Day 1 had so much in store (literally and figuratively), that it cannot be contained in one post, so I will be making at least two on the subject.

First to greet any L&L attendee is Big Blue. So, he will greet you, too (so will Greg).

(more…)

Category: Conventions, Hordes, RPG, Warmachine | Comments Off
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Posted By Lankira on January 4, 2012

Ah, 2011. I look back at the year from Game Theory’s new location, and can’t help but notice that most of the faces at our tables came to the game within the last 12 months. The new faces and names enjoying Warmachine and Hordes make me happy, not only as a Press Ganger, but as a person who enjoys watching other people enjoy themselves.

It was a great year for new books and models. WARMACHINE: Wrath was released midway through the year with loads of anticipation and speculation. As a Cryx player, I was (and still am) more than pleased with the new offerings for my faction. Sure, not all models are 100% useful in all lists, but even the more specialized models (Wraith Engine, I’m looking at you) still fit solidly into many of my favorite lists. My other half, a Khador player, is still over the moon about almost every model to come out of Wrath…for his faction at least. (more…)

Category: Conventions, Events, Hordes, Warmachine | Comments Off
Tags: 2011, 2012, Domination, Wrath

Posted By MJ;-) on June 21, 2011

Now, this is rather embarrassing.  This top 10 was ready to go in mid-April.  Wow, only two months, and already its showing its age…

Starting where the last Top Ten left off, here is Part 2 of EclecticGamer’s tutorial for painting Retribution Battle Mages

dcmechanix at Table Top Gamers posts a cool homebrew scenario; or it could be used as an additional layer of rules on top of another scenario – beware of the earthquakes, poisonous gas explosions, and magma gouts!

Great battle reports from a big 2-day event in Sweden featuring players from Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Austria. Hardcore painting requirement makes for some epic-looking forces.

docbungle at Miniature Musings of a Bear gives some good info and storyline behind the six new Warcasters coming with the Wrath release.

All Voices Anonymous at BoLS gives a good discussion of the Dragons of Immoren.
(more…)

Category: Hordes, Warmachine | 2 Comments »
Tags: Top 10