Rulebook Ruminations: Warmachine Prime, Mk II

We've been flailing about Western Immoren for a few months now, so I thought I'd take the time to go over what I think about the hardcover rulebook for Warmachine - Prime, Mk II.  I didn't know much about Warmachine when I got the gamebook, just that we saw the miniatures online and knew they were gaining in popularity.  Honestly the extent I'd heard about it in our gaming community was a member of the Ada Gaming Club telling me he'd thought really hard about getting into it.  Turns out another community member of that club had a bunch of brand new stuff for the game sitting around - he'd gotten it but no one expressed interest in it.  Well, until the Wargate happened along.

Warmachine was one of the miniatures games we proposed to the the club last year, and it's since the fateful decision to include support for several more games was made by the club we've gotten several players building full scale armies and immersing themselves in the world that is the Iron Kingdoms.  So for those of you who don't have a rulebook, let me tell you about it.

The book is a nice hardcover, though I've heard softcover versions are available.  Not sure why we'd want that - the price break isn't ever worth the hardcover!  On the inside, the pages are full color and glossy.  Beautiful art lines the tome, bringing the Iron Kingdoms to life in very vivid detail.  The rule diagrams in particular are quite nice, being well thought out and illustrating the various minutiae of play well enough to transmit the idea without fully reading the rules.  This is essential when training new players how to control their  forces.

The game rules are well organized, though in places I find myself looking for terms that don't exist.  If you're used to several other miniature games, some of the verbage that Warmachine uses seems to be vague, but actually isn't.  A different style of aesthetics in rule design, the wording of the rules is actually quite concise and seems to address every situation quite well.  It lends itself to a game experience that is quite like many other styles of game, such as CCG and RPG, but it's implemented in a way that feels different from other games and is quite fun to play.

Think Battletech.  Think Dungeons & Dragons.  Think about that Will Smith movie, The Wild Wild West.


Beyond the rules, the game includes a great color section that has a selection of units from the various Forces of Warmachine books - all the models found in the starter sets have stats in the hardcover rulebook.  As well as the stats, there's nice writeups on the various factions in the back and a good amount of world information spread throughout the book. The color plates of the units are fantastic, huge and splashy with color.  There is also a showcase of painted models in the back that is quite useful when painting the miniatures, as it shows many different takes on various models.  Did I mention the book is just plain good looking?

All in all, it's everything a main rulebook should have.  Concise rules, great diagrams, world and faction information and even some unit details to get you rolling.  The game plays fast, has fantastic support and plenty of cool new toys to play with.  It's also dry-erase ready - check out the token sets for the various factions!  Our club also has card sleeves for the unit cards (which you get with the models), and every game we pull out the dry erase markers to check damage off the 'jacks.

I totally recommend Warmachine to anyone who has an interest in both wizards and giant robots!

Firearms in the Indian Territory

Colt Repeater Rifle, ca 1855

The basic weapons in the World of Darkness rulebook do a great job of being very general, in the sense that you can take those statistics and represent a great deal of modern weaponry.  However, in different timelines you'll definitely want to modify the list to represent technology found spread hither and yon throughout the various skeins of existence.  So, we present a selection of firearms from 1875 in the Indian Territory.  These weapons represent a fair cross section of common weapons available and are adjusted to be more in line with the technology of the time.

The following sections have a brief overview of the weapon category and some examples.  This is the main weapon table we are using for our World of Darkness western adventures.  Tech is a new attribute that rates the level of the gun's technological accomplishment inside the world of 1875.  Higher Tech numbers are only found for sale in places where such things can be readily had, such as Ft. Grant.

Flintlocks / Ball & Powder
Typically found in the older parts of the Territory, flintlocks are still around - though they are on the way out.  These are single shot weapons that must be reloaded after firing them.  It takes 3 full actions to load one round.

• Flintlock Pistol (Dam 3, Rng 20/40/80, Clip 1, Str 2, Cost 1, Tech 1)
• Flintlock Hunting Rifle (Dam 4, Rng 75/150/300, Clip 1, Str 2, Cost 1, Tech 1)
• Single-Shot Ball & Powder Rifles have mostly the same stats, but are Tech 2.

Cap & Ball

Also known as percussion cap weapons, it takes 3 full actions to load one round.

• Light Revolver (Dam 1, Rng 10/20/40, Clip 6, Str 1, Cost 1, Tech 3)
• Revolver (Dam 2, Rng 20/40/80, Clip 6, Str 1, Cost 1, Tech 3)
• Heavy Revolver (Dam 3, Rng 30/60/120, Clip 6, Str 1, Cost 1, Tech 3)
• Light Rifle (Dam 2, Rng 25/50/100, Clip 1, Str 1, Cost 1, Tech 3)
• Rifle (Dam 3, Rng 50/100/150, Clip 1, Str 1, Cost 1, Tech 3)
• Heavy Rifle (Dam 5, Rng100/200/400, Clip 1, Str 1, Cost 1, Tech 3)

Cartridge

After the Civil War, cartridge weapons gradually replaced the percussion cap.  

• Light Revolver (Dam 1, Rng 10/20/40, Clip 6, Str 1, Cost 2, Tech 4)
• Revolver (Dam 2, Rng 20/40/80, Clip 6, Str 1, Cost 2, Tech 4)
• Heavy Revolver (Dam 3, Rng 30/60/120, Clip 6, Str 2, Cost 2, Tech 4)
• Light Rifle (Dam 2, Rng 25/50/100, Clip 1, Str 1, Cost 1, Tech 4)
• Rifle (Dam 3, Rng 50/100/200, Clip 1, Str 1, Cost 2, Tech 4)
• Heavy Rifle (Dam 5, Rng 100/200/400, Clip 1, Str 2, Cost 3, Tech 4)
• Shotgun (Dam 4*, Rng 20/40/80, Clip 1 or 2, Str 2, Cost 1, Tech 2)
• Scattergun (Dam 4*, Rng 5/10/20, Clip 1 or 2, Str 3, Cost 1, Tech 2)

Repeating Rifles

These famous weapons were groundbreakers and deserve their own category, due to their comparative rarity and notoriety.

• Colt Revolving Long Arm (Dam 4, Rng 50/100/200, Clip 4, Str 2, Cost 2, Tech 3)
• Spencer Carbine (Dam 4, Rng 50/100/200, Clip 7+1, Str 2, Cost 2, Tech 3)
• Henry .44 Rifle (Dam 3, Rng 50/100/200, Clip 15+1, Str 1, Cost 2, Tech 4)
• Spencer Rifle (Dam 5, Rng 75/150/300, Clip 7+1, Str 2, Cost 2, Tech 3)

There's a wealth of information on firearms on the internet, but you could start here with a treatise on the history of cartridges.  Thanks to Mark B. for his expertise on the subject, and help with codifying the statistics presented here.  Now there are plenty of guns for everyone from hillbillies and trappers to Indian braves and U.S. Cavalry!

     

The Blood of Menoth: A Warmachine Narrative

Wow, 11 days since my last post.  I'd apologize for not being up to date, but we've been so busy here at the Wargate! 


It is a special post however - this is the 100th time I've published to this blog.  It's been over a year since we started this new version of the Inner Sanctum website, and our club keeps growing with membership and views.  Though as a club we've had several websites up and down over the years, I think we've finally found a way one site can keep all the different events and narratives going at once in the best possible fashion.  Why didn't we try a blog before?  


We've added a lot of stuff to the range of games and activities we take part in, and I just want to thank everyone who's had a hand in keeping us relevant!

The last few weeks we've been in hard practice mode for our Warmachine campaign!  Now that the first Event Week has begun, the Blood of Menoth campaign page has gone up!  You can keep track of what's what there, and see which of the factions is currently leading.

There's not a whole lot of time left in this Campaign Season, but Blood of Menoth resembles more of a long-form tournament rather than a traditional campaign model.  As this is the first campaign the club has run with this particular gaming system, there are naturally not as many players involved in it.  This allows a lot more room for rivalries, however - and the purpose of the campaign is to decide where in the Warmachine universe our narrative will go.

In most of the miniature games the club plays, there is a marked tendency to avoid named characters from the canon of those games.  I don't know if it's a throwback to the old rules of "special characters need opponent's permission", but we here at the Wargate almost never throw a special or named character on the board.  Instead, we favor creating our own warriors along the guidelines of the army list and background to create our own narratives for campaigns.

Indeed, there is usually a "campaign world" such as Warhammer Fantasy Battle's Old World - and when we play the miniature campaign, it's results will show when we play the RPG version of that game.  Ditto for almost all other titles you'll play here.

Warmachine is a little different.  Though the Iron Kingdoms was a d20 RPG back in the days of the OGL, it's very hard to find copies of the books without paying a large sum of money for each one.  PDF's are available, but the physical object is a tool for gameplay - pdf's aren't going  to cut it at the Wargate.  Therefore, don't expect to see Iron Kingdoms break out onto the d20 RPG campaign schedule.  Warmachine is therefore, the first system that has no rpg analogue here - a refreshing change for some folks.

So, we will approach the narrative in slightly different manner.  For Warmachine, the game is tied to the existence of warcasters - named special characters that lead the army.  So, instead of playing characters of our own creation through the narrative (which will carry over from season to season and game to game) we are going to take the "premade" warcaster characters and play those as our own instead.

Therefore, Skim is High Exemplar Kreoss and Dirty Greg is Drake MacBain.  We'll be using the "plot armor" device for defeated warcasters - more Skeletor vs. He-Man than Patton vs. Rommel.  This sort of approach will be a fun and different way to design narratives based on the background material for Warmachine.

We'll be sticking very close to all canon material published for Warmachine and Iron Kingdoms.  We will be taking creative license with events and characters, however - these characters will do new things and maybe even visit new places during the course of our continuing narrative.  We might even shoehorn in some dialogue or quick piece of fiction.  That's just the way that we play the game!

Good luck to everyone in the Blood of Menoth campaign!  See you on game day!

Infinity Watch Devastators and Veteran Sergeants

The Infinity Watch is the Mardannon Sector's most prominent indigenous Astartes Chapter, and today we have a few more pics of Captain Video's army.  This Devastator Squad has engaged the enemies of the Imperium many times and proved it's worth on the field of battle!

Like the rest of his Infinity Watch force, they were basecoated black, drybrushed through several stages of gold and detailed.  Then, Quickshade Strong Tone was applied to the entire model, nicely rounding out the definition on the armor and equipment.  Notice the 2nd Edition Astartes?

The unit has 10 space marines, and is equipped with the standard range of weapons: a plasma cannon, lascannon, missile launcher and heavy bolter.  It's a ubiquitous setup, but will cost you a good chunk of points to field in it's entirety.  The full 10 warriors make the unit quite resilient, as units with only 1 combat squad can be very vulnerable to enemy attacks as they can be wiped out before they can return fire.

Here we have the Infinity Watch's highly experienced Veteran Sergeants!  Captain Video runs his units with 10 men, but most of those don't include a Veteran in the main list.  When he needs to, he can swap out the squad leaders with these Veteran models to increase their anti-tank / giant monster capability with power fists and plasma pistols.

The battle for Planet Nokk continues!!  Bring your Warhammer 40,000 army and set it on the table to have a say in the war!  Even if you're not part of the current campaign, come get you some action on the table and put your army's mark on Nokk!!

Gang Briefing: House Semetov

House Semetov

By Chief Scrivener Hannan

Lucruzu Primus, .M41

           

            In the annals of the Imperium, there are a great many noble houses that have risen to prominence in the Emperor’s service.  Some of those houses are traders, others have more specialized areas of influence.  Still others actually become the regents of their worlds, with their House Master presiding over their world as Imperial Governor.  Such is the case with the merchant House Semetov, rulers of Lucruzu Primus.

            Though there are many Guilder Houses on Lucruzu, only House Semetov enjoys the true power of the nobility.  With many contracts with the chartist vessels and even more than one of the ancient greatholds plying the stars, House Semetov has ruled the planet in an efficient manner for the last several generations.  Though their rule has been generally peaceful, the planetary defense force has had to move against heretic cults more than once.

The Merchant House

           

            From the city of Domagoshch on the main continent, House Semetov runs the day to day business of the planet.  Their agreements with the other nobles on Lucruzu and various contracts throughout the subsector put their world on the map, but that brings a lot of unwelcome attention as well.  Recently, heretic cults following proscribed versions of the Imperial Creed have been a huge issue.  Three times in the last decade alone, armies of these malcontents have had to be put down by the House Guard or by PDF forces.  The Adeptus Arbites have a fortress-bastion in Domagoshch, but it is undermanned and tends to police the Guilders themselves rather than the populace.

            From time to time, a unit of House Semetov Guard will make a pilgrimage to some sacred place or another.  Refugium, in the Urbanus Totalus system, is the most dangerous and long journey one could hope to make.  There, the soldiers will visit the Temple of the High Lords, and the shrine to Warmaster Mardannon.  If they should return, they will have an honored place amongst the House Guard and will most likely train the next generation of soldiers to protect the interests of the House.

The pilgrim that has returned to Lucruzu Primus is quite rare, but some actually manage to make it back.  Many simply visit the neighboring Velan Thracia, but those who are truly heroic will strive to reach Refugium…most die or are lost in the process... 

Building Planetary Empires!

 We got Planetary Empires done last month for the beginning of the Brave New Waaagh!!!  The guys have been battling it out over the last few weeks on the planet Nokk, so I thought I'd post these pictures of the humble beginnings!

 We resolved to complete the project as quickly as possible, but it still ended up taking a week for Planetary Empires and the Hive City Tiles.  We had an idea in mind and thought we'd dedicate the Warhammer 40,000 empires box to our new set of "Brown World" terrain, since we also have Mighty Empires and plan on doing that one in a "Green World" motif.  So, welcome to planet Nokk!

 Jerry Wargate and I gathered our materials and began by spraying all the tiles with the Army Painter's Desert Yellow spray primer, which gave it a nice shade of dirt.  I heartily recommend the Army Painter's line of products, and have linked their main site here and on the main links list, so check out all their really cool products that make our modelling quick and easy.

Spraying the tiles.  Remember kids, fumes are noxious!

 We took the base colored tiles and clipped them from the sprue.  With a bottle of Desert Yellow paint we filled in the clip marks and touched any tiles up we needed to.  Some tiles needed a second spray altogether so we just gave it to them all at once.

Base colored spaceport tile.  The clip together teeth are tight!!

 Then we began painting them.  There were 50 total tiles, (48 in the box and 2 Hives) and about 8 of those were only one sided.  So, 42 tiles x 2 sides each took about 3 actual working days to complete between the two of us.

 It was really fun going through and choosing color schemes for the tiles.  Going by some of GW's illustrations, there's a lot of ways this can be put together - but our agenda was simple.  Planet Nokk is a dry and nearly barren wasteland, with few trees and little water.  It was easy!

A vision of diligence.

After all the tiles were painted, they got a bath of Quickshade Strong Coat. This is another Army Painter product that by now I'm sure everyone is familiar with.  If not, check it out on their main site - it's a gas once you learn to accept it's use.  It's a bit like that liquid oxygen fluid in The Abyss.  You don't want to start it, but once you do it's actually pretty cool.

It's difficult for me to adapt to use of the Quickshade, because I usually use a black undercoat and use that to help me shade through all the stages of my painting technique.  I have a fairly developed style and Quickshade makes a mockery of it - so I basically have to paint in reverse.

 If you can develop a style that plays to it's strengths, the Quickshade is an invaluable tool.  Luckily, I had Jerry there and you can check out his videos on the subject here and in the links section.

Shaded, not antiglossed.

 Of course, when using the Quickshade, you probably want to apply some of their Anti-Gloss as well.  Personally, many of you know I break from accepted practice by applying gloss coats to many of my miniatures.  To me, a gloss coat adds a special quality of togetherness to a model, and many of my armies have gloss coated miniatures.  However, the sheer weight of time that I've been collecting models means that even in a single army you can find gloss and matte varnished miniatures.

 Since I've started using Quickshade, I've come to the light.  Matte seal is the way to go on minis simply because if you do them all the same way, upon close inspection they all appear more similar.  Not that the gloss coat on some of the models and matte coat on others is distracting (there are literally too many orks to worry about that) but from an aesthetic point of view the uniformity is especially appealing to me.

 Not only that, but when applying Quickshade it doesn't always dry evenly.  This means the basic coat may leave some spots shiny while others are dull.  Best option - apply an antigloss spray to the entire model!

A bombed out, ruinous crater.  Now with Anti-Gloss!

 We've been playing the campaign pretty much right out of the box!  The style is fun, loose and appropriate to our gaming habits!  The finished Planetary Empires looks great with all the pieces put together and everyone has had a blast routinely checking on the fate of planet Nokk!

The Realms of the Ruthless.

 We'll be doing the Mighty Empires for our next Warhammer campaign as well!  Join us at the Wargate next Sunday for more battles on Nokk, as well as a few other surprises!

Banning in Standard

"Jace - seriously.   I'm tired of this.  Shut your mouth, take your crap and get out."

Well.  It's been a long time coming, but finally there are some changes to Standard.  Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic have been banned as of July 1.

Anyone who's been playing either Magic Online or in some of the higher level tournaments will know that a certain kind of deck has been dominating the top spots in those tournaments.  A deck involving these two cards and as much deck manipulation as you can get.  They called it:  "Caw-Blade".

I would point to this article by Tom LaPille.  Back in April, every single deck had 4 of a specific card.  As a developer at WotC, LaPille explains here why we began to think that Jace, the Mind Sculptor would be a little much.  Aside from that, I have my own opinions on the bannings and I'd like to share them with you.

First, I'd like to say I'm both for and against these bannings, but ultimately I'm quite grateful for this game changer.  It seems 1 out of 3 decks on Magic Online, I'd come up against almost the very same deck.  Imagine - the metagame for the past few months has been one of countering this deck.

I won almost every time vs. Caw-Blade and it wasn't that hard.  Most of the time they don't defend themselves until they get one of their Swords out, which you can easily get rid of if you know what's coming.  The harder issue to get around is one of Jace's ridiculous powers.

Jace's abilities are many and varied, but being able to simply return any permanent to your opponent's hand every turn is probably the most ridiculous.  This can set up a removal ramp that your opponent can't handle and then smashing them with the Stoneforge Mystic's artifacts.  For the last good long while, getting rid of the artifacts and Jace has been the entire game.

I know that planeswalkers are supposed to be powerful, but I think the Magic designers are getting out of hand dreaming up "victory conditions".  It's become all about how awesome something is and it seems no one remembers this is a game of numbers - not simply waiting to draw the latest uber powerful mythic rare victory condition.

More reserved design is needed.  This kind of thing needs to be reigned in.  It's become less of a "game" since WotC has decided that each duel should last a certain amount of time, like just a few minutes.  Until someone drops a victory condition that the other player can't handle - and it's generally all the same.  It's invalidating a lot of great strategies because that strategy doesn't include Jace, the Mind Sculptor or some other ridiculous game winning card.  See Wurmcoil Engine, any of the Titans, and few other "Mythic Rares".

As they have now had to admit the design team wasn't thinking about anything when they made Jace, the Mind Sculptor other than how awesome their character had to be, I think we're ready to see some definite changes in the Standard game.  Aaron Forsythe, Director of Magic R&D, wrote a column basically asking us not to hate them because this never occurred to them.  He then explains that they actually tried to fix it my making cards just to counter Jace.  Problem is, that's just adding cards to a confined list and doesn't fix anything.  Do I really have to take Phyrexian Revokers just to compete with Jace?  How linear do you want this to be?

It almost seems as if they have taken to designing power cards in a vacuum.  Instead of testing deck ideas and coming up with new ones, they simply reprint old abilities on new art - or dream up something totally ridiculous.  Like 1 point of damage each round for each mountain in play (Koth).  Or a 6/6 lifelinked deathtouch that you can't immediately kill - no matter what. (Wurmcoil Engine).  I want my games to be battles between wizards - not two guys drawing cards from a deck until one draws the "I WIN" card.

To design a deck for Standard Open Duels even here at the Wargate, it has become - "Choose your Mythic Rare win condition and spend $20.  Now grab a bunch of commons to fill it out to 60.  Congrats!"  It's been like that for a few years, but the cards are getting stupider.  There's almost no board interplay - just "Destroy All" and "Target Opponent Loses".

Unfortunately that's what the presence of these exaggerated victory condition cards have done to the Standard metagame.  They should have never made it through the design process, and I'm of the opinion the designers need to ratchet power levels back - a lot.  You shouldn't be able to win every game you play with your deck simply by drawing a single card.

Mike Flores, the most popular of Magic columnists, has lined out a few of the other powerful offensive strategies that may now come to the fore in Standard.  Most of us have encountered these types before, and they'll probably remain top-level for a while.

Until some new ridiculous mythic rare victory condition comes along.  You're on thin ice, Wizards.

Incorporating New Game Systems Into the Routine

"We must plan ahead for these large, incandescent explosions."

So, we've started up some games of Warmachine.  This is in addition to our normal dose of Warhammer at the time, be it either flavor.  We have been talking about playing several other games for a while and a few of us have already created armies for a few of the Specialist Games.  However, there seems to be an issue - not everyone is going to be playing every game, and at times this might cut into time they feel is reserved for their game.

We've had to split the RPG schedule up into two specific game days, but Sunday is going to remain the heavy miniature day at the Wargate.  Oh, sure - once every couple of weeks campaign games get played on Monday or Tuesday, but that's not as often as we'd like it to be, what with real life and all.  Even for those of us who don't really do much else, the strains of family, romance or other hobbies and activities keeps us from battling for three hours every single night.

Sometimes, a given campaign can be held up by the absence of certain players.  Players will stand around wanting to play, but we've largely abandoned the concept of non-campaign games.  Not that we discourage one-off games, but it's always better when it's part of a campaign.  We want to make sure there is a great variety of games being played, and that the tables are always full.  So, at any given time, there will be two wargames campaigns just as there are two RPG campaigns.

Players could generally take a look at the games we plan on incorporating into the campaign schedule and decide where they want to get in on the action.  Since wargaming is such an intensive hobby, requiring hours of dedication to collecting and painting, it's worth saying that attempting to take part in all these games would be daunting.  However, take a look at the games that are coming up and see if you can't make sure you have a campaign game on the schedule during each interval!

Wargames Campaign Schedule for the Wargate

• Warhammer 40,000 and Warmachine (Summer: June, July & August)
• Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and Mordheim (Autumn: September, October & November)
• Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Necromunda (Winter: December, January & February)
• Flames of War and Clan Strife (Spring: March, April & May)            

This will persist seasonally until further notice.  This also addresses another notion:  some of the members of the club feel that if a game goes past 6pm it's cutting into RPG time, or that one of the wargames is not, somehow, correct if it's on the board.

If the seasonal time frame matches, and these games are on the board, then it's the "correct" game to be on the board.  The game on the board is not interfering with your gaming, I assure you.  YOU are interfering with your gaming for not taking part in a Wargate campaign!

It's all rather easy to get into a new system.  Most of the time these rulesets are very simple, not like learning an entire new RPG.  40-80 pages of rules, tops - and it's never that many since there are so many huge pictures and diagrams in each manual.  Learning new rules then, according to me, is a non argument.  The biggest worry then is new miniatures and all the things that means, specifically there are three things that have to be addressed.

Everyone has to somehow acquire their models, and for most of us that means spending cold, hard cash.  Kudos to you if you have a back door to a distributor and get all your stuff for free, but the generally accepted reality is that each new army will cost somewhere between $100 and $200 for an introductory force.

Yikes.  Does that sound bad?  When some people say this aloud, they almost say it in a tone that compares it to crack cocaine.  "OMG that new army would cost me almost two bills!!"  or my favorite "How much did this cost?! OMG you spent that much?!"

Well, this is a problem that can be easily circumvented with some very simple advice - don't buy the whole army all at once.  Each new unit costs only a fraction of that price, usually in the neighborhood of $20 to $25.  Even if you're living hand to mouth, and you can generally afford a 20-pack of whatever swill you're drinking every paycheck.  So unless you really need that extra beer, you can grab a unit once a month and be perfectly safe.

The second issue is painting and assembling models.  Well, that just kinda happens.  I love to assemble models, but never seem to have time to paint them.  Jerry, on the other hand, makes loads of painted models appear but has confided in me several times that he finds it tedious to actually construct them.  We're thinking of forming Voltron.

The last issue would be making sure your models have a home.  Guys please - buy something nice to put models in.  If you're worried about space - remember that most of the armies get stored here.  You can always leave it with all the others.

I have a separate article dealing with cases.

There is, however, one more issue - and that is time.  For those of you interested in joining the Flames of War and Clan Strife campaigns, make sure you're getting your forces together now.  It won't be long until those campaigns launch - and that's when you'll need your army!