Sunday, January 22, 2017

A Slight Delay

By this point I had hope to have my new year purchases done with my Battlefront stuff on the way. That hasn't happen for a few reasons. A note about my buying habits, I only buy directly from the miniature company themselves or at a gaming store. I had plan to pick up my non Battlefront stuff at my local gaming store but they didn't have what I wanted to start my Age of Sigmar army. I would have been happy with either the Pestilen starter box or the plague monks box but my store had neither in stock. They did have a plague claw but that doesn't make sense to me to get that now. I don't know if I will really like it to have 2 as the Pestilen starter box is such a good deal that I will eventually pick it up. The only other Skaven things my store had was clan rats and the verminlord box, neither were things I want to start my army with. I will have a Corruptor as my army general but I want time to paint other parts of my army before I tackle him. Plus I want some time to think up conversion ideas for him. As for clan rats, I want them mainly for conversion purposes and to scavenge their base for plague monks. Its not quite a new years resolution, but I wanted to try to quickly assemble and paint all new models purchase this year. I now know that plan has some issue but I don't want to break it with my very first purchase. Now my local gaming store had plenty of Chaos stuff to choose from. Still, part of the reason I went with the Poison Army was so I would have an army that was a little different from my current army so I really didn't want to start with more of the same. Now I could have pick up the stuff for other games at my gaming store but if I got everything all at once I would get a better discount. I had to think about what to do. I could have the store order plague monks but I personally have had bad experience with ordering from them. Then again I don't think they ever had a problem getting Games Workshop stuff, just other companies like Battlefront. So in the end I order the plague monks and I'm waiting for them to arrive.

My Battlefront stuff has been delay for a slightly different reason. First I can't get them from my local gaming store because their selection for Battlefront is horrible (outside of Tanks) and nothing I've order has ever came in if it was a Battlefront miniature. The only Team Yankee stuff I can buy off the shelf is the main book, Potecknov's Bear box, Bannon's Boy box and maybe the tokens for US and Soviets. Out of that the only thing I may be interested in down the road is the Potecknov's Bear box. So this means I need to order my stuff directly from Battlefront. Now I'm still in the process of moving and would be worry that the delivery driver would drop my miniatures off at a location I may not be at for a while, a problem I have with them just living in one place! That said I've also been rethinking my purchase, in particular on the Flames of War side. Taking the train over the holidays reminded me that the last time I played Flames of War I wanted to use a train list. My problem is that the Berlin list and a train list will have almost nothing in common with each other. In some ways its like trying to buy 2 separate armies from two different countries. I suppose until I make the order I have time to think about which way I want to go.

That's where I'm at now. I had hope I would update a little more often this month but the move has taken a lot out of me. I probably won't get a post on my new purchases until after I fully move. Thanks for your interest and thank you for reading. Until next time...

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Introduction to BattleTech: Defense of David

As I have mention in the Winter Update my friend Chris and myself design a BattleTech Campaign which I have since forgotten many of the mechanics we develop for it. And since he gotten a new BattleTech rule book that deals will some of the stuff the campaign is about, we might as well wait until we can get together to see if we want to adopt any of the new rules. What this post will be about is the general outline of the campaign and how the design came about.

At the beginning I thought we were going to craft our own lore for the campaign. Choose a year in the setting that will serve to limit what technology is available and we would make up everything from there. Instead I was shown that the official lore is so large that it is relatively easy to fit any scenario somewhere in the establish setting. The starting place was still picking a year which I allow Chris to choose since I usually get to choose my preference in our BattleTech games. Unsurprising to me he picked the Fourth Succession War. I favor clan tech along with their more advance mechs and I can tell while he loves nearly all things Battletech, the classic mechs and the tech level where the game started is close to his heart. Next we had to pick sides to play as. My friend was more than happy to play as any of the available choices which left me to decide first and Chris would then pick an appropriate foe. My knowledge on Battletech lore is quite low so my friend had to give me his personal short description of each nation. After hearing about my choices I decided to go with Federated Suns because I like the sound of mixing mechs and combat vehicles working together. Also I was in the middle of playing Tanks! at the time and was beginning to develop a liking for WW2 British warfare which also has some characteristics to Federated Suns. Chris went with Draconis Combine. I was given the choice so I decided to play the defenders. I figure there would be more potential playing the defenders if I decided to write short stories about my part in the campaign. At this stage the only thing we had left to decide was the location for our personal war. Chris looked up all the worlds in Federated Suns that bordered the Draconis Combine during the Fourth Succession War. There were a lot of options but only one planet had a scenario we both were interested in and fit what we had in mind for our campaign. That planet was David.

In the lore David, the second planet in the system, was apart of a skirmish conflict during the Fourth Succession War on the Federated Suns/Draconis Combine border. Under Federated Suns control, David II was the homeworld of the 41st Avalon Hussars. The 41st were deployed elsewhere in the universe so the 12th Deneb Light Cavalry garrisoned David in their place. The Draconis Combine attack David using the 9th Dieron Regulars while the 41st were away. The 12th Deneb Light Cavalry fought the 9th Dieron Regulars using guerrilla tactics. By refusing Dieron Regulars of having a stand-up fight, DLC greatly delay and frustrated the Draconis Combine force. DLC delayed long enough that the 41st Avalon Hussars were able to return, which caused the Dieron Regulars to withdrew from the world. The campaign will be our version of this very scenario.

We gave ourselves 55,000 battle value points each to design our force (which we still need to do). Once this is done I will have to split my force into two to represent the 41st Avalon Hussars and the 12th Deneb Light Cavalry. I will not be basing my force on either of them. Instead I will be choosing my force from anything that was available to Federated Suns during this time. Chris will do the same with the Draconis Combine. Both of us will have 36 million c-bills that we can use for repairs. At the start of the campaign I will only have access to the 12th Deneb Light Cavalry portion of my army. The 41st will show up later in the campaign at a random time neither of us will know about. In the meantime I will have to hold out until they arrive. We will split up our force into banners on a map. We will be giving these banners orders which will affect each unit in said banner. Some of the type of orders we can give banners are fight, scout, defend and move. The campaign splits up time into strategic turns. We will give each banner one order during each strategic turn (which represents one day in the setting). Any battle that I am the defender (I gave my banner the defend order and it got attack) I will get 3 platoons of rifle infantry for free. This will represent the local militia helping defend their planet. At the end of each strategic turn I will roll a d20 and add up the total to previous rolls. Once the total reaches 100, the 41st Avalon Hussars have arrive in the system. They will make landfall 12 days later and join what's left of my force (this is because David jump point stat is 12 days).

And that is a rough outline of our campaign and I doubt any of that information will change. The last time I work on my army list I was struggling to keep the ratio of my mechs, combat vehicles and others items the same as the official Federated Suns Regimental Combat Team. The Regimental Combat Teams was the main reason I pick Federated Suns in the first place so I will find a way to have a facsimile of it in the campaign. Once we rehash out them out, I will post the full rules of the campaign on a nexus page. After that I will post an article that will have our full rosters. At this point, once the map is done, the campaign will begin. My one fear about the campaign is that I will get annihilated before the 21st is even close to arriving since I will be vastly outnumbered. In any case we will find out in the coming months. Thanks for reading.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

My Warhammer Plans For 2017

Happy New Years! I've decide to start 2017 with some Warhammer news. At the time of my Winter Update I had no idea where to go on the Warhammer front. I've since settled on a plan that has multiple parts. The initial part is to build my Age of Sigmar Poison army.

The idea behind my Poison Army is Clan Pestilens Skaven mix with Warriors of Chaos Nurgle with some demons thrown in. One of the reason I'm going with it is because its both new and a continuation of what I already have. The Skaven is going to be a new experience for me, both from the aspect of painting "skin" oppose to my mostly metal force and for the first time dealing with something closer to a horde army. Also I have zero Skaven models so this part of the army will be all new. On the Chaos side I can fall back on stuff I'm more comfortable with and already have a lot of. But I will be taking my Chaos in a different direction. I will be doing a slightly different Nurgle paint scheme that will match my Skavens. I'm hoping for a balance between having the Poison Army look like a different force from my main Chaos army and yet have some of the Nurgle parts that could still fit into my old army. Not sure I can pull it off but that is my goal. Also if I do have Forsaken in my Poison Army they will be different from my original plans. My Poison Army won't have the corrupting nature theme of my current Nurgle force so kitbashing Chaos Warriors with Dryads doesn't really fit. Kitbashing Chaos Warriors with rat models would be perfect but all of the Skaven line is either too small or too big for that, I think. I have thought up of other conversion I could do, like a Chaos chariot being pulled my giant rats (or the wheels get replace by rats). Now that I've settle in for what I'm going to do, the ideas for conversion is overflowing.

I've actually played very few games of Age of Sigmar and I've only recently began to digest the point system in the General's Handbook. I'm a little afraid of coming up with a list that isn't competitive. My first few games will be friendly matches with a friend so this won't matter at first but I eventually want to travel to events with my Poison Army and I don't want to get smash because I have a bad list (getting smash because I'm playing better players is a different story and that is fine with me). In any case I will be sticking to my theme and will try to improve my army in any way that doesn't departs from said theme. There are a couple of things I still haven't settle on. I hear that in the fluff every clan has clan rats but I'm not sure if I want to add them to my force. Beside going further to being a horde army than I want, clan rats can't get the Pestilens and/or Nurgle keywords. I don't know all the problems that will cause but I'm not sure clan rats will be worth the cost. They do have the benefit of still being sold with square bases. As I'm still a fan of 8th edition I want as much as my army to be usable in both systems. With the official end of 8th edition I find square bases are harder to come by, at least with Games Workshop models. This more than anything else makes the clan rats tempting. The other thing is that I was never a fan of Skaven warmachines (which is why I never collected them before now). However if I don't take warmachines that doesn't leave a lot left to fill my army with Pestilens stuff. I will probably have to just bite the bullet and pickup the plague warmachines.

My initial plan purchase is a box of Plague Monks, Plague Censer Bearers and a Plague Priest (or two). I also want to pick a box Chaos Knights fairly early on. Later on I want to pick up a second box of Plague Monks and the Verminlord Corruptor. This along with an unit of striped and repainted Chaos Warriors is going to be my core force. After getting some games in I will decide where to go from there. In my mind I want a rough mix of 50/50% even split between Skaven and Chaos, if not a little more Skaven. I am worry about the cost of getting that much Skaven plus I know there is so much more Chaos stuff I want to consider like a Warshrine, Forsakens, chariots and more. And I forgot to mention a box of Plaguebearers in there. The best part about this army is that it is easy for my to try out new things with it. I already own a lot of Chaos and my friend has a ton of Skaven and a 40k Nurgle army I could borrow to test out options. This is probably the one of the few armies I could build while play testing and not have to do any kind of proxies.

My Poison Army is only the first part of my Warhammer plans. Once I have my core force assembled and painted, I will start designing an AoS campaign. The other reason I'm going with the Poison Army is that I came up with a campaign to use it in. The storyline for the campaign is new as well as connected to my current World of Chaos plot. I need to finish some unpublish lore but I will deal with that once I'm actually working on the campaign. I'm sure between Phil and myself we have enough models to start the campaign immediately but I really want my core army to be painted first. I want any battle report pictures to look like there is a unified threat. Even using Phil models will still fit the narrative as they will represent hired on mercenaries. I plan on hiring mercenaries to be a big part of the campaign itself.

And those are my plans for Warhammer in 2017. Will start it off with a box of Plague Monks next month. Let is how it goes. Thanks for reading and I hope the new year will be a good one for you. Until next time.