Miniature Tabletop Gaming Thread

isn't there a 3 point jack he could drop or something?

Not just in low-point games!

Cryx battlebox is pDeneghra, Deathripper x2, Defiler, Slayer.

Making it Slayer/Defiler/Deathripper is the next best you can do at 10 points, which makes it a little under most other battle boxes. But I think pDenny can handle it.

Bahimiron and I played three games of X-Wing yesterday.

First game: Basic set only, I was the X-wing, he was the two TIE Fighters. We used the basic setup for pilots, but then used all the rules and not just the quick start stuff. I blew up one of his TIEs before he took me down.

Score: Empire 1 Rebellion 0

Next game we did a point buy with just the basic set, which says should be a 31 point game. So it was Dark Fist (or whatever his name is) with Determination, and Obsidian Pilot vs Luke Skywalker with Proton Torpedoes and R2D2. This time I played the Empire. Luke went down in record time, I think on the 4th turn.

Score: Empire 2 Rebellion 0

Finally we did an all out 100 point buy using all of Bahimiron's expansions. This ended up with Bahimiron fielding 4 TIE Fighters, 2 by named guys and 2 by schmoes, and then Lord Vader in a TIE Advanced vs a guy named Horton flying a Y-Wing with an Ion Cannon, Wedge Antilles in an X-Wing with Proton Torps, Evasive Maneuvers, and an R2 unit, and a dude named Gavin (probably not, but I'm doing this from memory) in another X-wing with some other stuff.

Gavin died in a fireball in the first pass with the TIE swarm, then it was a clusterfuck of turning and wheeling and bumping into each other for quite awhile. I should've taken more defensive stuff for the Y-Wing (like an R2 unit that healed shields). The rebels eventually died without blowing up a TIE fighter at all, though I had Vader whittled down almost to death, and some lucky die rolls kept him alive.

Score: Empire 3 Rebellion 0

So either we don't know how to really play the Rebellion, or this game is a little unbalanced. Maybe? Neither of us could win with the rebels.

Bahimiron took pictures, so hopefully he'll post with more details and pics.

Yeah, I was going to post last night, but the fact that my keyboard randomly forgets spaces means I get lazy about posting stuff that's long at home. But I do have a couple of pictures of our last game.



A classic TIE swarm lead by Darth Vader. As you can see this pitched battle takes place deep within the heart of the Great Beige Nebula. To one side is a giant space amethyst and to the other is an enormous space glass of beer. Our first two games were on a regulation 2x2 mat Dean had, but for the final battle we just decided to use half the table. Not that there was ever any chance of us going off the board once shit got real.



After the first pass. As you can see with one exception every single one of my TIEs did a spinaroonie move (I'm pretty sure there's a technical term used in the book, but spinaroonie worked for us) and u-turned to be facing directly toward the ass of the rebels. By this point they've already lost one of their X-Wings, Darth having unloaded the full power of his fully functional cluster missiles on him as soon as they were within range. You might notice that one of my guys isn't facing the right way. He was already stressed but I'd forgotten and put in a red move. So Dean got to pick the move he made, which was one that rendered him basically useless. Still, I got a LOT of free shots off here.

Then this happened.



I have to imagine that this is not generally considered an enviable position for anyone.

In the end, despite getting into Rubik's Configurations like the above, the empire defeated the rebels.

I understand the A-wing comes with some missile packages that make the TIE swarm a little less deadly. And I imagine that with its 360 might, the Millennium Falcon will also be of a real benefit to the alliance. But this is my big worry with this game. TIE Advanced, TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber. In the end, the empire will almost always just end up making a TIE swarm because that's what they're all about. Maybe Slave I will switch things up on that end, but then by having Boba Fett go into battle alongside TIE Fighters I kind of feel like you're stressing theme a little.

Oh well, it was still a lot of fun. Building your loadout is more fun than deckbuilding and damn if moving tiny toy ships around on a board doesn't induce glee in a way not often felt since childhood.

Last night we did a Warmachine night with me, two new-ish players, and one absolutely new one.

I played one of the new-ish players, my 25pt pStryker army against a 25pt pDeneghra army. He was unfortunately really quick to pick up on the various horrid ways he could use his arc nodes and debuffs, and I ended up going down ingloriously through assassination.

The other new-ish player led the complete newbie through a Menoth-vs-Khador battlebox game, which ended up the complete newbie getting stomped. In theory you're supposed to help the newbie out more, but I guess when the newbie is your younger brother that can fall by the wayside in favor of a complete back-to-childhood curbstomping. They then played again, adding in a MoW unit and a unit of Cinerators, which basically turned it into a two-player-box game. At that point the completely new player had figured out the flow of things a bit better, and he got revenge on his brother. Actually, he almost tabled him. Quick learner, I guess.

Anyway, that went well, and I think next time I'll encourage them to try timed turns to keep things flowing.

It looks like you guys weren't playing your X-Wing game with terrain. It makes a tremendous difference, especially for TIE swarms as it's harder to keep them bunched up. Also, looking at the Rebel's starting setup they are pretty far away from one another. I like to keep them in a tighter formation so they can fire as a group and help each other out with special abilities. TIEs are squirrely, so taking them down often requires one guy stripping them of their Evade/Focus token and the next guy putting a banana in their tailpipe. Getting four ships on the table as the rebels is also nice for dealing with swarms. There are a bunch of new things in the Wave 2 set that should make swarms less reliable.

Instead of playing X-Wing this weekend I bought a couple of Plano cases and used them to organize my stuff. They work pretty great as the lid is perfect for tokens/dice/templates/etc. and the compartments inside are sized nicely for ships (there are even two bigger slots that look about right for Falcons and Slave 1s--that Falcon in the picture is a Hallmark Ornament I was using to see if the X-Wing version would fit, and it should).

I can fit all of my current stuff in one case, but I bought two so I'll have room for the Wave 2 stuff I have on pre-order, and so when we're playing we can just grab the Rebel or Imperial kit and get going.

I picked up that same Plano last week, and I agree that it's totally perfect. I don't have as many ships as you, so my stuff all fits in one.

The extra nice thing is that you can get all of the ships, bases, and pilot and upgrade cards in the bottom, and keep the top for the tokens you use during the game. Then, once you've set up you close the bottom, open up the top, and just draw tokens from it as needed. Makes setup totally painless.

Funny you should post that, Baker.







Like nlanza said, I've got all the tokens required to play the game on top and everything required to build your squads in the bottom. The only exception is the damn posts, which I think I'm going to end up having to put in a little plastic bag, as there's no real appropriate place to put them in the bottom. When the Millennium Falcon comes out I'll most likely end up moving the pilot and upgrade cards in with the rule cards and templates, which are in the second big hole though the light kind of obscures them. Man. Why didn't those lazy shits just stick the templates on cards? I shouldn't have to cut them out, goddammit. Every ship is packed with its wheel except for the TIE Fighters. I have plenty of room in there for A-Wings, TIE Interceptors and a Slave I. The only problem is that the stupid thing didn't actually come with all of the dividers you might need, so here's hoping they sell those separately.

It didn't come with all the dividers you need because you didn't do what everyone else who buys Plano boxes does and yank all the dividers out of the other boxes on the shelf before stuffing them into the one you buy. (Pro Tip: NEVER buy the last Plano box on the shelf unless you've checked it like you would an egg carton.)

I played a 30-point game with the kids tonight (Luke vs. Vader, who schooled his hapless son) to see how the storage system worked in practice. What a difference. Setting things up and taking everything down took a fraction of the time, and it was so nice to not have to dig through multiple boxes and piles of tokens for stuff. My only wish is that there was an easy way to get the top lid off because it takes up a lot of room when open.

I actually got it off of Amazon. So if someone took the dividers before shipping, it was someone at the warehouse or Plano themselves.

Edit: Based on some other storage solutions posted to BGG, it looks like I got the correct number of dividers. It just didn't ship with enough to put one in every slot. However people are saying Plano will send more for free if you email them.

I think so too. I might try it for the next few games. As Waltzer said, however, we'll be stepping up to the 15 point level soon so that might help level the playing field. People will not be quaking in fear when I add a whole three Scrap Thralls to the list...

We did also built in the option of playing alternative battleboxes in the league. There are certain build restrictions in place, but basically you can mix and match 'casters and 'jacks. I can try that for at least one of the weeks as we transition to the next level. One of our players committed to a Borka/Axer/Mauler army from the start, which has been fun to watch.

My Conquest strode onto the field of battle for its inaugural game this past weekend. With a major Warmachine/Hordes convention approaching, me and a few other players from my regular group have wanted to get in a little practice with our lists (we've been spending so much time with our slow grow league that we haven't had as much opportunity to play our main factions). We likely won't be participating in any of the longer tournaments, but there will be an Iron Area (aka- "open play") event running throughout the weekend. It's been a lot of fun in the past, especially since you can earn points for prize redemption through playing pickup games.

In any case, I'm also trying to hold true to my Play It Painted pledge. I'm working on getting the Kayazy Assassins, Kayazy UA, and Eliminators up to fully painted by the end of the month. With those guys done, and some touch up (and sealing) on a few other models, I should be ready for the con!

Here are the 35pt lists from the practice match:

Kommandant Irusk (*6pts)
* Conquest (19pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Battle Mechaniks (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Doom Reavers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Kayazy Eliminators (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)

Feora, Protector of the Flame (*6pts)
* Reckoner (8pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Daughters of the Flame (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Temple Flameguard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)

We played 7 minute timed turns (with one 3 minute extension), variable tournament timing (starts at 70 minutes but is adjusted up or down by Tournament Organizer...in this case the player who was sitting out). Scenario was Close Quarters from SR2012.

The intent with my list is to provide a number of threats at once, hoping that at least one of them makes it through. Iron Flesh is generally reserved for the Kayazy (unless Irusk needs it), Superiority helps boost the Conquest to 6 SPD (awesome), Battle Lust can either go on the Eliminators at the start or can go on the Kayazy later on, and Inhospitable Ground hopefully makes it hard for the enemy to match my advance.

So that's pretty much what I tried to do in this game.



My first Main Guns shot with the Conquest (ever) got me a Critical Devastation on a pack of Temple Flameguard, which proves that painted models are happy models. Otherwise the Doom Reavers and Kayazy went screaming up the field. The Eliminators flanked.

The Flameguard moved up in Shield Wall and screened the jacks, the support, and Feora. The Daughters moved up the middle to ambush the Reavers, but put an obstruction between them and the Conquest. The jacks put some shots into the Conquest at this point, I think, doing about 13 damage.

The Battle Mechaniks quickly earned their keep, though, erasing all but one of the damage points. The Conquest moved up to put a toe in the opposing zone and laid out some more shots, killing some more troopers but missing horribly with most of its Secondary Gun shots on the jacks. The Reavers ate some Daughters and moved towards his backfield, but were mostly a nuisance. The Kayazy started getting into range. The Eliminators continued their long run behind the Menite ranks. Irusk put up Inhospitable Ground to deny the Menites a proper charge on the Conquest (good), but then forgot to move into his own zone to earn the Control Point (not good).



The Daughters killed all but one Reaver. They couldn't really touch the Iron Flesh of the Kayazy, however, and just clustered around them. The PoM jacks put some more damage on the Conquest, but not a ton. A stray Vanquisher shot clipped Irusk, however, and put a solid hit (6 or 7 damage) on him. The Flameguard moved up to engage the Kayazy and got closer to the Conquest.

Seeing an opportunity on my next turn, I put Battle Lust onto the Kayazy and they minifeated. 5 of them were able to get to Feora and that was that.

Ultimately it was helpful to get some more Irusk experience in, and of course it was really good to get the Conquest on the table. I feel like it performed well, both as a real and perceived threat. Afterwards my opponent commented that he really could have used the Vanquisher shots to greater effect against the Kayazy, and I agreed. They are a ridiculous unit, with their 19 DEF (while engaged under Iron Flesh). The Eliminators didn't do much, but by being where they were I think that they helped herd Feora more towards the main Kayazy unit. The Reavers did what they do best, which is to die after distracting the opponent for a turn or so. Poor guys.

I'll post a shot of the finished army once everything is touched up and sealed!

A couple of thoughts on X-Wing two days out.

I think next time I play I'll have to try some of the scenarios. They seem like they spice things up a lot more than just deathmatch.

Congratulations to FFG for finally making a game that doesn't immediately have me going to Headless Hollow to print out and laminate a player guide. Just about everything I need is on the back of the rulebook. Very nice.

Goddammit, templates on cards, jerks.

Why do I feel like I should seriously look into the best way to go about making a 3x3 starfield playmat?

You can make one with a credit card pretty easily.

How about that!

And they even offer a 36" by 36". I wonder if that's new since Star Wars came out, given the size of their other items. I'd have to see one in person to see if I liked felt, though. Seems a bit weird.

Until then I might just see if Jo Ann's has a starfield fabric and if so, get a 3x3 there.

Edit: Having looked at a number of other mats people have made, I've decided I'm not a huge fan of having a lot of colorful nebulae in there. This is Star Wars, not Freespace 2.

Edit: This might be a bit too on the nose.

GaleForce 9 also has one that's vinyl instead of felt, with optional 3D asteroids on little stands!



Also, the Plano case turns out to be great for ferrying the game to work and back. Had a 70pt match after a meeting today and got lots of sort of confused looks from coworkers wandering through the break room, along with a couple who just sat and watched the whole game.

I have put my costume designer wife on the task of making a 3x3 cloth mat (felt? something else? I leave that to her expertise) that won't crease when you put it in the box.

She started in on sequins for stars and I put a stop to that. She still wants to do something other than a black or very dark blue mat. I was like, "I was just hoping you had some kind of cloth in your vast storehouse that you could pull out this week and I'd have it ready."

She thinks she does.

So my plan was that the first X-wing and the Y-Wing were a pair (Gavin swooped in closer on the first move), and that Wedge would be off to the right and come in from the side to have the TIEs in his sites immediately after the first pass. This kind of worked, except Gavin died in the first pass, so instead of a 2 and 1 grouping, it was a 1 and 1.

I could've had another X-Wing, but the point budget was so tight that I would have either had to give up the ion cannon on the Y-Wing, and Gavin as a named fighter, and just gone with two rookies, Wedge, and Horton. The ion cannon seems to me the main reason for the Y-Wing, and without it things are pretty sucky offensively.

With only 3 ships, I had plenty of points for enhancements. Little good they did me.

Sequins for stars? Haha, your wife is awesome!

For X-Wing, I took some of the spongy black shelf liner and cut it into 1 ft x 1 ft squares. This way I can do 2 ft or 3 ft if I want faster matches. They slide around a little bit, but for the most part it works pretty well.

That black shelf liner I use on my table makes a perfect X-Wing mat. It slightly grips the bases and movement templates, and it has holes so I could install actual lights under it. Gotta draw the line somewhere, though.

And since credit cards were brought up, why not go for this?: http://www.combatwombatminiatures.com/star_fortress.htm

I may get the turret set because he's selling them for far less than he should be.

EDIT: There are also these free paper models. The person who suggested filling paper models with popcorn kernels deserves some sort of awesome award.

I get that the trench run is iconic, but if it really comes down to Luke shooting his torpedoes down the reactor core shaft, that means that the whole thing just ends in one die roll. Doesn't seem a ton of fun to me. I could be wrong, though! I'm sure the coverage for the strafing run and the TIE fighters and the foozle woozle are good, but ... enh.

Though there's no denying how immersive that sort of crazy 3D setup would be.

Maybe I'll just put together nine 1x1 chipboard space things that can be easily moved around, so they can be modularized into a 2x2 or a 3x3 game.

If you're bored enough that you want to just get in some X-Wing practice, someone created a web app which acts as an AI for an opposing team and then someone else put it up on his server so everyone could play it. One can find it here, and it works fine on my iPad, so presumably would work okay on any mobile device. It's pretty dumb considering it only barely accounts for what your ships are doing, but it's better than most of the solo play options so far (roll a d6 to see distance, roll a d6 again to see which move) and so long as you're okay dicking around with it a bit (you'll want to override it when it decides to fly off the board, for instance) it's not a terrible way to get a fix.

Yeah, I'm still looking for a decent AI for X-Wing and am thinking of making some solo-friendly scenarios where enemies have objectives, artificially limiting their options. This would be offset by giving them more ships or other advantages.

I'd really like to put together a solo campaign where you start with two rookie X-Wings (or TIE Fighters) and earn points after each mission to sink into upgrades, more ships, and/or better pilots. Ideally the campaign would be dynamic, with a mission generator based on some of the stuff I've seen in RPG books I've been poring over for the past few months. That coupled with the same basic progression as something like the TIE Fighter PC game's campaign (with primary and secondary objectives) would be neato.

I'd probably better get some real work done before embarking on that project, though...

Jay Adan has successfully stripped the paint off an A-Wing (go to about 2:18 to see him do it):



BTW, Jay was over on Qt3 for awhile. He was a professional model builder.

What's the endgame though? Stripping a mini is for when you look at it after two years and hate what a terrible painter you were, not these beautiful ones.

To make a blue one, like he says up front and like in the photo he uses for the title page.

That's what I get for watching without sound.

Jay will regularly repaint pre-painted figs.

Here's what he did with a Hulk Heroclix-- original is on the right, his version is on the left:

Yeah, shows just how awful the Heroclix paint jobs really were on a lot of figs.

This is what happens when I have time for a hobby, but too little outlet.

A couple enterprising members of our gaming group (including our gracious host) figured out a way to take time-lapse photos of our matches. We conducted a test trial last night and it worked remarkably well. The camera was mounted to a support beam that is conveniently located right above one of the tables.



The guy with the camera has already strung the shots together into a video. Judging by the video, 5 seconds worked out to be the right length of time; you get a really good sense of the action.

Here's a shot from on the table.



Rob O'Boston isn't quite done with it yet, but the paint job on his Dire Troll Mauler is already looking great! He may be the first to get the league's extra challenge points for finishing a model by the end of the month...

That's an awesome idea, Orsson. I like battle reports, but I don't usually have the patience to watch some goddamn real-time version -- that's time I could spend actually playing the game myself.

Have you considered putting some up as a Let's Play on BF?

I'd love to see that time lapse video!

Yeah, you tease us with this time lapse thing, then you snatch it away!

I honestly hadn't realized that Let's Play wasn't just for play-by-forum sort of stuff. Thank you for the suggestion, though, as I see that an ongoing series of batreps might be an appropriate fit there.

We'll experiment with the video, I think, as that's an area that a few of us would like to try. I would like to get better at taking notes during the battles, though, as that will help with both written AARs and video commentary.

I'll continue to post the results, however, and appreciate the positive feedback!

Hopefully I will have some more pictures and text to throw at you this weekend as Waltzer are planning to get a couple more practice matches under our belts with our TempleCon lists. We're both working towards fully painted for the con as well...yikes! I might try to work on the base for my Conquest tonight, actually...

My copy of Sedition Wars showed up today, with a bunch of the extras.

Wow is that a ton of minis. I haven't even had time to get Dreadball painted yet, so my backlog is starting to scare me.

Nice-looking sculpts, though, and I like the glow-in-the-dark and clear set that came with the add-on solitaire 'Lights Out' campaign pack.

Sometimes I wish I could take a six-week sabbatical from work or something to start to make a dent in the backlog.

My Cupboard Of Shame would keep me painting for years even if I never bought another figure.

CoolMiniOrNot really cranks things out. So far I haven't been interested in their games (aside from the miniatures), but damn if they don't know how to use Kickstarter to run a business and build brand loyalty.

My RPG crowd got annoyed with me holding up various minis to the camera and asked me if I just had loads of them lying around. A quick pan of the camera later and they didn't have to ask again.

Without KRMulticases I don't think I'd have any room left in the flat...