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!