Summoners Journal #2 - The Penguin Knight Event

I can not describe my feelings properly on the Penguin Knight event. "I love it", "I hate it", "It was enjoyable". These emotions doesn't quite fit my feelings on it. "Boring" is a lot closer but still not quite there. I think the best way to show my feelings on the event is to explain how the event works. And before I can get into that I need to explain a few more details about Summoners War mechanics.

I mention in episode 1 that monsters come in grades from 1-star to 5-star and all monsters can be evolved into 6-star monsters. What I didn't go into was how much effort it takes to evolve monsters above 3-star. Evolving a monster has two requirements. First the monster needs to be at max level. A monsters max level will depend on its grade. 1-star monsters max level is 15, 2-star monsters is 20 while 6-star monsters is 40. In essence each grade above 1-star adds 5 to its maximum level. Not only do higher grade monsters have a higher level cap, they also have a different experience table. 1-star monsters require 460 xp to go from level 1 to 2 while 6-star monsters require 1150 xp to do the same. Needless to say the higher a monster's grade, the harder it is to level them up to the cap. The other requirement to evolve monsters is that you need other monsters to sacrifice. The monsters being sacrifice needs to be the same grade as the monster you are trying to evolve (though their level doesn't matter). You also need a number of monsters equal to their star grade. That means to evolve a 3-star monster, first it needs to be at level 25 and you need three other monsters that are also 3-star. To evolve a 5-star monster you need five other 5-star monsters! This is a daunting task. The game does help with this pain staking process by giving out Rainbowmons as possible rewards. Rainbowmons are monsters that can never be used in combat but come at max level for its grade so you can immediately evolve it. That makes them extremely valuable.

With that understanding of how evolving and Rainbowmons work, this is what the event is. Every time you evolve a non Rainbowmon monster into a 4-star, 5-star or 6-star monster, you get a free Rainbowmon. There is a limit on how many Rainbowmons you can earn and of course the event is only a limited duration. So to take advantage of this event you need to evolve as many monsters as possible during this 2 week long event. That means leveling up a large number of monsters as quickly as possible. For me that meant playing the game in a mechanical way to manufacture monsters. The story missions is the best way to level up monsters if you have a single monster strong enough to solo it on the hardest difficulty (all monsters fighting on the team earn the same amount of xp). I probably played a set of maps at least 500 times during one week of this event. Spending most my time playing the same map over and over again is so boring but at the same time the reward is so good that I can not NOT play it.

It was kinda hard to make an equivalent example to miniature gaming. But I think I came up with something with a similar vibe. Imagine if someone near you was running an escalation league that used house rules you were not a fan of and require over half your army be newly assembled (and you have to prove it). However the host is giving out really good door prizes. In addition to door prizes every week you show up with two new units that you put together and painted that week, you get a free box set of your choice. I think most hobbyist (if you can afford the initial investment) would endure playing with bad house rules multiple weeks if it nets you 10 free boxes of miniatures.

And that's basically how I feel about the event. I can't say its a bad event because its giving away really valuable rewards. but at the same time its making me play in a way that makes me hate the game. I played the game a lot less these last 2 weeks following the event. I needed some time off. That said, I have made sizeable improvements because of the event. My account level which was 43 before the event is now max at 50. After playing for over 5 months I never had 6-star monsters until this event. I was close to getting my first 6-star before the event but I needed a small boost from early in the event to finally evolve my water knight into a 6-star. She gain a cool aura and was my strong point for leveling everyone else up.

By the end of the event she reach max level 40 from leveling other monsters. It took nearly the rest of the event to get enough monsters to evolve my second 6-star monster, my dark fairy. I almost considered myself done with this achievement, but the event still have a couple hours left and there were a few more Rainbowmon that I could still earn. So I continued grinding nonstop those last few hours until I got every last reward from the event and I evolve two of my mid tier monsters from 4-star to 5-star.

One of the last rewards I earn from the event is a Light & Dark Scroll. This scrolls is fairly rare and quite valuable. I will go into why this is the case in another episode. Scrolls summon a random monster and up to this point I haven't used the scroll I earn from the event. So I will end this piece by using said scroll now as I'm typing this, write down what monster I got and sign off. Ready ... and I got a Light Bearman. Well I will talk more about this next time. Until then, have fun and thanks for reading.

Thoughts on Battlefront's Christmas Video

Battlefront release a Christmas video on their front page this week. It was a nice brief video where they wish their fans Merry Christmas, reflecting on the past and giving a preview of the upcoming year. It is their plans for next year that I mostly want to talk about. Though I do want to touch upon the Pacific release which was one of the first things mention in the video. I discuss in our podcast how excited I was about the Pacific release leading up to it. Sadly it came out around the time I was getting out of Flames of War. But now I'm getting back into it, I still don't have a interest in it. My excitment for the Pacific comes from me being highly interested in the Pacific naval battles such as Midway. I was hoping Flames of War would expand into naval combat but instead we got more ground combat. And since Battlefront has shot down adapting Team Yankee's aircraft friendly rules to use in mid war because they don't want air power to have a strong presence, my disappointment is complete. I guess Battlefront doesn't want me buy 12 Japanese Zeros. On second thought I don't want me buying 12 Zeroes either. Maybe this is a good thing.

In any case lets move into the new stuff. On the Team Yankee front the big news for me is the book Red Thunder and Stripes. This book expands on the Americans and Soviets, giving both sides new lists and toys to use. In my opinion this was sorely needed. When Team Yankee came out this time last year I thought the US and Soviet lists were a good first start but they both needed more options. I was hoping for new lists and toys within six months of its release. The Soviets did get a new list in that time though I felt the US needed it more. I understand why Soviets got a new list considering the next two nations for Team Yankee were both NATO. I really felt the lack of options in US when the West Germans came out. I know nothing about the British release so I can't say how it compares to the US and West Germans. I knew we were getting new stuff for Soviets. When I came back into the hobby I immediately notice new releases for Soviets in the store which meant a new list had to be on its way. Getting confirmation that the US was also getting new stuff was a relief.

Something I notice near the end of the Team Yankee section was that there going to be new choices for the Warsaw Pact and American forces. Now I'm sure he just misspoke and meant Soviets instead of Warsaw or he uses Soviets and Warsaw interchangeably. But giving that the East Germans will be out next month, upping the number of Warsaw nations in the game up to two, he could have meant that there is a Warsaw list that combines Soviets and East Germans in the new book. Battlefront has made mix nation list before. There are a few mid war lists that combines Germany with the Italians. On second thought, unless the Red Thunder book comes out closer to the end of the Summer, it would be a little too soon to release a mix nation list right after one of those nations got its own release. So I will chalk this up to being a mistake.

The last Team Yankee bit of news was that at the end of year Battlefront wants to release Team Yankee: Vietnam. It will be a stand alone game with all the list in the book. Besides updating the game with TY rule set, it seems they will be adding new stuff to it that wasn't in Flames of War: Vietnam. What I want to know is despite it being its own stand alone game, is it possible to play a game with a nation from Team Yankee:Vietnam against a Team Yankee nation. I know it probably wouldn't be a fair fight due to the difference in technology but if both games are compatible with each other then players would have more options to play with.

The conversation then moved to mid war and Flames of War 4th edition. I stuck my toe in mid war and I enjoyed the experience. Getting plastic Italians is a pleasure to hear. It is also nice personally that if Tracy ever comes back to wanting to play mid war, our forces will be the second release (Americans and Italians) which means it should be out in a more opportune time for us. The fact that mid war is getting is own book is new to me. But then again that would make sense since they are trying to kept Early and Late War as close to third edition as possible while Mid War will look a lot more like Team Yankee. The biggest piece of news for me was that I can get a physical 4th Early/Late War book by exchange my own 3rd edition mini book. This makes me extremely happy because I much prefer physical books and that my mini book started to fall apart as soon as I got it home. The last bit of Flames of War news was they are planning to do organize play. I'm really interested in seeing how that plays out. Great things to look forward to.

These were the highlights for me. I think I pick a good time to hop back into the hobby. Thanks for reading and have a Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas.

Winter Update

It is a little embarrassing to think I was about to start this article with almost the exact same language I used before during this time of year. So instead I will be more direct. I've come to the realization that I need to be a lot more active here and I plan on doing just that in the new year. In many ways the beginning of new year with be a new start for me. In one major way this will be the case is that I will be moving in January. This will affect the blog in two ways. First, even though I plan on being more active next year, a lot of those plans have to wait until after I move. My models are being boxed up and I don't want to order new stuff until I'm at my new address. Second, I'm going to make sure in my new home I will have a place dedicated to working on models and recording video. In the long run this should be good news for the blog. Many of my current projects will be also getting a fresh start in one way or another in the new year. Here is a summary of those projects as well as my status with other games I've mention recently.

Team Yankee/Flames of War - I lost my motivation to keep up with Team Yankee when I had no one to play with. Along with the feeling that my Americans were cursed, I didn't see a purpose to follow a game I had no way of playing. Tracy drop everything gaming related to work on a personal project. He also sold or attempt to sell all his terrain that we used to play with. But he still has his Soviets and mentions how much he miss playing. And I have to admit I do too. Especially since the game has move so far since I've been active. I quit when West Germans were coming out and now we have Britain, East Germans on the horizon and new toys for Soviets. As if this wasn't enough to get me excite, Battlefront announce 4th edition of Flames of War. I always enjoy Flames of War and partially the reason I gave it up was because of Tracy's dislike of how complex the rules were. With 4th edition, it seems Flames of War is getting the stream line treatment Tracy always talked about. With all this excitement, I've decided that in the new year I will work on both Team Yankee and Flames of War stuff so if and when Tracy is able to play again I will have my own painted force to use. Also on a side note I'm planning on doing some traveling by train. If this experience isn't a complete nightmare it will open the door for me to travel around the country to attend wargaming events. As Team Yankee and Flames of War are the games I'm most interested in going to events for, I need to put in the effort to have forces ready if the opportunity presents itself.

I'm taking a fresh start with my Team Yankee force. It seems something always goes wrong when I work on my Americans. So I'm going to start a West German and a Soviet force. I'm going with West German because they seem similar but better than American in most ways. I know Americans have their advantages but I think West German just fit me better. I'm also going to work on a Soviet force because I thought up a silly idea for a list I want to play with. When I realize I could make a list with 20 T-72s and still have almost a fifth of the points available to purchase other things, I wanted to see this in action. I have no idea how I want to spend those points yet but since it will be a while before I will have my 20 tanks, it is a problem I can save for later. I do have another reason for starting my Soviet list. When Tracy becomes available to play again, there are a lot of scenarios I think would be fun to play. The thing is, many of these scenarios require way more T-72s than what Tracy owns. If and when we start making videos and battle reports again, I really want to try to limit the amount of proxying that is require. I don't have the means to grab these armies quickly. What I can say is that when I purchase something new, I will assemble and it paint it as quickly as I can. My first Team Yankee purchases of the year will be 1 Leopard 2 tank and 2 T-72 tanks. The irony here is that I won't be able to finish these tanks until I buy more stuff because I will lack decals since I'm buying just the sprues. At the very least I can get them to the point where I'm done painting them.

On the Flames of War front I'm also going to start fresh with new models. I have a handful of Flames of War stuff that is currently unfinished but I've decided to sideline them for now. The first thing I needed to decided on to restart my Flames of War force was which list to focus on. While it is in my nature to randomly pick up units, Flames of War lists are so varied that I could buy 10 different late war units and there could be a list that has none of those units as options. The Bridge at Remagen book has lists that I enjoyed playing with but instead I went with my last Flames of War purchase, Berlin. There is a lot I can say about the Berlin list but I will saved it for another time. For now I will say my Berlin list is going to start with the Kleinpanzer Wanze. Ever since I first saw a picture of it I wanted the model of this vehicle. With its six Panzerschreck rocket launcher tubes, I so want to see the Wanze in action on the game table. My only regrets about them is that 1. they are only in the Berlin book (to my knowledge) and 2. I can only ever take one unit of them. Once I finish painting an unit of Wanze, I will consider where to go next.

Battletech - My Battletech status is more than a little embarrassing. My friend and myself came up with a scenario to play. We picked sides and crafted special rules to fit our scenario. The only thing we need to do was to fill out our roster. I never finish making my roster and we both stop talking about Battletech. Since then I have forgotten a lot of what we develop for the campaign and my friend has pick up a new Battletech book that covers some of the stuff our campaign is about. Last time I check we both were still interested in playing. We need to get together to review the rules and discuss if we want to change anything with rules from the new book. In the meantime I will post a summary of the scenario we are planning on playing. After we rehammer out the rules, I will post those rules on its own page. I wasn't going to give Battletech its own page but the campaign we design turned out quite a bit more complex than I thought it was going to be. We won't be able to start playing until after I move. I also want to pick up a couple of mechs based on my roster before we start as well. I'm looking at March to be about the soonest we can start our own personal war.

Relic Knights - Relic Knights continues to be the game I'm most excited about that I've never played. The two games of Hordes I played this year reminded me of Relic Knights in many ways. After playing a few more Hordes games I will do an article comparing the two systems. My plans is to do two Relic Knights videos, one in March and the second in May. At this point all my Relic Knights models will be fully painted and I will be looking for games to play. If I do get to play a few games then I will do a third video around July talking about my experience playing the game. That is as far as I can plan out because I still don't know if I will like the game. Everything I've read about Relic Knights tells me it should be something I will really enjoy but sometimes games have deal breaking quirks that you only learn about playing the game yourself. If I do end up not liking the game, I am playing two other games that uses similar bases in which I could use the models for instead.

Frostgrave/Civil War - Both of these went nowhere this summer. I never saw the Civil War group for the rest of the summer. Afterward the summer I stop going to my local store so I had no opportunity to see either of these groups anymore. At this point I have no interest in trying Civil War because I already have so many other things I'm working on at the moment. I would still try Frostgrave as I could use models I already own for that. Still I would put it as a very low priority and its highly unlikely for me to play it before this summer.

Warhammer - I am drawing a blank on where to go with regards to Warhammer. I'm torn between 8th which both my friend and myself enjoys more, and Age of Sigmar which is what I expect to play if I travel around the country. My Holy Moon plans are on hold until I finish a lot of models and terrain. It also doesn't help that there is a lot of armies I want to build. I want an 8th edition Bretonnian army, a goblin army that can be played in either 8th or Age of Sigmar or a "poison" army that also can either be played in 8th or AoS. Until I can decide what to focus on first I think I should probably just work on terrain since I don't have any of my own. My local gaming store has plenty of terrain to use but it would be nice to have my own colorful terrain plus it is something I will need for my Holy Moon project.

Hordes - My second Hordes games didn't go well. We started playing way too late so not only were we rushing, we didn't get to finish. This lead to an unenjoyable experience. That said, I got two things out of the game. One, I learn the game is really picky on facing. This is something I may have an issue with. I need to play more games to know if its something I can deal with or that facing will be such an annoyance for me that its a deal breaker. The other thing I learn is that I can't play with proxies, at least not in the way I was thinking of doing. I had hope I could used my friends Trollblood models to proxy in for my Circle Orboros force. The problem is that it was so confusing trying to keep everything straight (I never had this problem before except playing with the Berlin list in Flames of War). Added to the fact that I was still learning the game and learning what my own force could do made everything a mess.

My friend has picked up a second army which will making learning the game much easier for me. I won't be able to get a feel for my own Circle Orboros force but learning how the game works with a different army will still be helpful. When my friend brought the second army, it included two Circle models which he didn't want so he gave them to me. My initial modelling plans caught a snag. My cockatrice is much too big to be used with Hordes (at least for what I was planning to used it on). Turns out that the Tyranid Hormagaunts are the perfect size to kitbash to make Circle warbeasts. They may be a little small but they should work ... if I could find my remaining sprues! This was a mystery that drove me crazy. I check all my bit boxes and the remaining Tyranid sprues were nowhere to be seen. The box allows you to make 12 Tyranids and I only used 2 bodies for my Forsaken conversions. I suppose I can check again after I move and will have all my hobby stuff in one location. In the event that they never show up, I will have to go back to the drawing board for conversion ideas. I will be buying one thing for Hordes with Christmas money. What, I'm not sure yet. I need to look over the faction deck again to decide what will go with the two monsters my friend gifted me. I might wait until I've played a third game of Hordes before deciding what to get.

Mobile Games - To start I no longer play DC Legends (that was quick). Days after my mobile games post DC had an update that made the game functionally unplayable for me. The required a new client to be download and installed. The new client is such a resource hog that I would had to deleted everything else on my device to update it. While I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't have lost my progress, I enjoy Summoners War way too much to risk it for DC. I also have a Warhammer: Age of Sigmar app on my tablet. When I downloaded the app it didn't include the any war scrolls unless I click on an individual profile. Not something I want to deleted and reinstall every time DC Legends wants to update, which could be as often as once a week. I enjoyed DC Legends but its not a game good enough to endure that kind of headache. I have since started playing a new mobile game though I don't want to say which until I'm sure I'm staying with it. On one side I'm not sure how I could tie it into my blog here, while on the other it does reminds me of Blood Bowl.

Summoners War is something I am still playing (maybe a little too much). I have already posted the first episode of my Summoners War series and I am currently working on future episodes. As I am working on the direction I want to take the series, I am beginning to think maybe not every episode will be link to miniature gaming. I will try my best to link my SW stories to miniature gaming but the narrative may go in a direction where is little or no parallel. In this case I think it would be best for me to not to force an unnatural comparison. My thoughts on Summoners Journal is constantly evolving. The one thing I'm certain about it is that it will be a staple here for a while, especially during my moving.

Shieldmaiden Knights - Shieldmaiden Knights is a project I am still working on. Making them into a Warhammer army is attempting if it wasn't for the fact Games Workshop has so few female models. So for now it will be a side project for when I see interesting female minis. The last time I was in a gaming store, another Reaper's Bone miniature caught my eye. It was a female giant (I don't know if its suppose to be a cloud or storm giant). It look really cool in the package and since its a Bone miniature it's cheap. The next time I am in the store I will be picking up two. I still haven't came up with a history for the Shieldmaidens yet. I will start working on it once the Knights first 3 minis are fully painted.

Warhammer and Charity

The Warhammer Youtubers had a special "Topic of the Week" this week. Vince and Tom have set up a page where people can donate to UNICEF. UNICEF is a charity that helps poor children around the world. I first heard about UNICEF from a TV show host whom has a partnership with them to build desks in schools too poor to have their own. For the past 4 or 5 years I always hear about them during the Christmas season, so UNICEF is something I would support. I am not in a position to be able to give myself so I figure the next best thing is to promote a charity I believe in. And if the thought of giving isn't enough of an incentive to donate, Vince and Tom have sweeten the deal by offering a raffle. From what I understand anyone who donates any amount will be put into a raffle for Games Workshop products they are giving away. To hear more about it from Vince himself, you can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tAf24OVDdk.

If you want to go directly to their donation page, it is here: https://give.everydayhero.com/us/warhammer-weekly-unicef-giving-extravaganza-2016

If you are willing and able, please donate. If you are unable to donate then please share this story. Lastly, if you do donate or if this story moves you then please leave a comment below. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Summoners Journal #1 - My Playstyle

I figure for my first episode of my series combining Summoners War with miniature gaming, I should start by explaining more of how the game works and then go into my own personal play style which is remarkably similar to how I collect miniatures. The monsters come in 5 types: Wind, Water, Fire, Light and Dark. Monsters have versions of them in most if not all of these categories. And while visibly they will look the same, some monster varies greatly depending on its type. For example I have a Water and Dark Fairy. Their base stats are similar (not identical) and their first ability is mostly the same. However their other abilities are completely different. The Water Fairy has a heal and a damaging sleep attack while the Dark Fairy has an arrow attack that could stun and a damaging curse attack that lowers the victim's critical hit rate. A monster's overall power is measurable by its grade. The grades go from 1-star to 6-stars. Higher the grade, more powerful the monster. Monsters have a base or starting grade between 1 to 5 but all of them can be evolved into 6-stars. The game has a turn based combat system. When its a monsters turn to act, they have to used one of their abilities. The first ability can always be used but if the monster has more than one ability then those addition skills will go on a cool down after being used. There is still a lot more to understand about Summoners War but I will leave that for future episodes. For now that should be enough of a primer to get a general idea about play styles.

I've seen some videos done by content creators about what is the most efficient way to play Summoners War. From my own experience I think they are correct. They suggest starting with a goal. There are several dungeons in the game that each require wildly different strategies to complete. Pick one of these that dungeons you want to reach the end first and then build a team to accomplish that. You will probably need to look up what type of abilities you will need such as a healer or a monster with a multi hit basic attack. When you come across a new monster with one of these abilities that you are currently missing, you will either add it to your team or replace a current member of your team if the new monster can perform that role better. For the most part this team of monsters is the only ones you will be using until you can quickly clear the final stage of your goal dungeon. Even if you decide to branch out to play the other dungeons or the story mode areas, you should still only use these monsters. The reason this style is the most efficient way to play is because it takes a lot of effort to strengthen your monsters. By focusing on a small number of monsters at once you can reach their full potential as fast as possible. Clearing out the final stage in the special dungeons (they are called Cairos Dungeons) gives you the most resources you can earn from one place. Once you are able to clear the final stage quickly, you will have the resources needed to transition into anything else you want to do in the game.

Needless to say, this is not how I play the game. Instead I pick monsters that I like the look of, have interesting abilities and/or will fill a void in my lineup. I don't have a set team or even teams. I have a cast of over 20+ monsters that I consider to be my active force. When I attempt to do a mission I choose who from my active force I want to use. In theory since I can tailor what I'm using to take advantage of enemies weaknesses I am able to win fights with weaker monsters. In actuality many in my active force needs a lot of work and there still quite a few holes in my ability to exploit weaknesses. Playing this way is so inefficient because investing in so many monsters at once is very time consuming. Still I enjoy playing the game this way as it allows me to use a wide variety of monsters. My progress is really slow given how much I have played the game but I think this style matches who I am.

Which would makes since, as I have mention, this is similar to how I collect miniatures. I started playing Warriors of Chaos because I love the look of their core troops. After getting enough chaos warriors to fulfill my core requirements I started buying models base on if I like the looks of them or they had rules I wanted to play with. I also never had a standard list. Nearly every time I played Warhammer I wrote up a new list. It was quite rarely for me to ever reuse a list. I quite enjoy making army composition question every game. Did I want to used 2 units of chaos knights in this game or just 1 unit of knights and a chimera? The same is true of my Team Yankee force. I was just buying units and made a new list every time I played. And this will be true Hordes and probably anything else I play. The one exception to this is my idea for a Soviet Team Yankee force. Being more in line with the efficient style of Summoners War, for my Soviet force I will only have a single list and only purchase models that I need for that list. This is how my podcast partner Tracy built his Soviet force. After a few initial games to get an understanding of the rules and how the Soviets work, he made a single list and only brought units that was in that list. Outside of the campaign which had special rules and limitations, that list was the only one he played with. Later in the year he made some adjustments to the list and quickly pick up what he needed for those changes. For me I currently only have an interest in the Soviets because I thought up something a little silly to do with a list. Hint: lots of T-72s are involved! But again the Soviets are the exception. With every other miniature force I much prefer to collect as many different options as possible.

Now that I think about it, this is also how I play many of games as well. I wonder how I develop this habit. I do see some similarities with some classic 80s cartoons I grew up watching like GI Joe, Transformers and M.A.S.K. These types of cartoons have large casts of heroes that do not appear in every episode. Especially with M.A.S.K. as an average episode starts with a problem, following up by selecting which heroes to call in to deal with the problem. In any case, that is about it on discussing my play style. Next time I will talk about the "fun" of the current event. Thanks for reading.

Mobile Games: Summoners War & Others

Video games has always been apart of my life. My interest in war games has its roots in video games. Growing up playing games like Masters of Monsters, Dark Wizard and Final Fantasy Tactics had inspired me to design table top games in a similar vein (I later learn those games already exist so I had no need to design them). Mobile games are something I've only recently started getting into. I have a friend that is big into mobile games and he would tell me about the games he played. There was only one game that interest me enough to want to play it myself. I had been thinking about getting a tablet for a while but this game seal the deal for me to pick one up. That one game was Summoners War. I pick up a tablet as soon as I could and I've been playing it ever since.

The game's full title is Summoners War: Sky Arena. Something to keep in mind as Summoner Wars is the name of a different game that also has a table top and mobile version. I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually get into playing Summoner Wars but that is for another time (if you don't notice the difference it's whether "s" is after Summoner or War). Summoners War is a Pokemon like game where you play as wizards summoning monsters oppose to being little kids trying to capture wild animals. What I like most about the game is the designs of the monsters. Many of them I could easily see in a Warhammer or Kings of War army. More than once have I consider trying to paint up a model in the style of the game. Here are some of my favorite units so far.







With the amount of time I spend playing Summoners War I figure I should make some content about it here. What and How is the question. It's not the type of game where I could make a new account and based my force on the characters from Chaos Magic. What units you have available to you is completely random, besides the initial 5. And the more powerful the unit is, the rarer and harder it is to come by. I also don't think I could make it work on my existing account. Since there is no way to rename the monsters it would be incredibly hard to keep track of the Chaos cast from my current monsters. This means trying to do a narrative playing in Summoners War is out of the question. I have consider painting models in Summoners War style before but I'm currently in a position where it is unlikely I will be picking up very many new models soon. There are a lot of ideas in Summoners War that I could use in designing a campaign. However I don't think campaign designing is ideal for a long term and ongoing project. So where does that leave me? What I've decided to do is to write about my "adventures" playing Summoners War and connect the narrative somehow with the miniature hobby. How will this look? I have no idea. This is something I came up with as I was writing this article and I will probably won't know for sure what this will look like until write the first (or maybe the fifth) chapter. This will be a learning experience for me and I hope the end product will be something people will find entertaining.

Since starting Summoners Wars I have tried my hand at a few other mobile games though I haven't found anything I enjoy as much as Summoners Wars. That said, I did come across another game in the same genre that is based on the DC Comics license. It's called DC Legends and it came out this month. This is the second game I've played that seemed to try to cash in on the popularity of another game by using the DC license. The first game was Infinite Crisis which was a DC clone of League of Legends. I don't think clones are necessarily bad. Even though Infinite Crisis blatantly ripped off not only the style of League of Legends but several characters as well, I found the game very fun and entertaining. Too bad the powers that be didn't give it time to find its footing before pulling the plug. What I find most funny about both these games was the way the story justified the games mechanics. In Infinite Crisis an event happen that cause several different universe to merge together. The heroes are disorient because of the effects of the event. They need protectors (ie you the player) to direct them to their goal. In DC Legends case, the Black Lanterns have nearly wiped out all life in the universe. The dead now serve the Black Lanterns as ghosts or shades. Defeating the shades may earn you a shard of a hero's soul. Collect enough shards and you can bring that hero back from the abyss, returning them to life. That is the game's plot. The game's mechanics is that you are able to earn various characters shards in several different ways. Once you have enough shards for a particular character you can recruit them to your team (or power them up if you already have them). I have played many comic book games, but these two are the only ones I've seen that the plot explains the mechanics. In most games the plot ignores that the mechanics even exists.

I don't like it as much as Summoners Wars but I enjoy DC Legends well enough to continue playing for a while. There are some issues I have with the game but it is common for online games to need a few months to work out the kinks. It is highly unlikely I will try to connect anything from the game to any Chaos Magic fluff. On the other hand, there is a DC base war game so it is possible in the future. I don't know anyone who is playing it but the rule book is on the shelf at my local gaming store. I'm not sure what exactly I will be writing about relating to DC Legends, but I will definitely not be posting any pictures from the game. Given the newest of it, I can see myself writing guides about its various features. Once I have two or three articles on DC Legends, I will make a page so that information will be easy to find.

Summoners War
DC Legends

Returning to Team Yankee

I gave up working on my Team Yankee stuff when Tracy drop it so he can concentrate on a different project. I left off at nearly finishing my first tank. All I needed to do was to shade, add decals and then seal. I encountered a friend last week whom we had convince to get into Team Yankee during our summer demos. He mention that he has some Americans but is having trouble getting the rule book. He also mention another friendly player that has pick up some Team Yankee models. The conversation encourage me to at least finish my current models. Knowing that I still have people to play with renew my interest in the game. So I applied the shade to my almost finish vehicle and this was the result...





Needless to say I didn't get the results I was hoping for. Not entirely sure what I was expecting but this wasn't it. Maybe I was hoping the black would gain a green tinge so it would look very dark green instead of black. What I got was no recognizable change to the black and the grey and blue lines turned green. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. To fix my tank I need to stripe the paint off and start all over. For now I'm going to put it on the shelf and work on other stuff. The only good thing I can say about this is that I really like the look of the black and green. I think I will use this color scheme for my second company when I want to add a second formation to my list. Unfortunately I'm no longer a fan of my stripe design. Think I still want to same colors but I'm thinking of switch to a camo pattern. In any case I'm putting the pause back on my Team Wraith until I can assess where I want to take them from here. In the meantime for Team Yankee I can put together and paint the Gepard box that I have. I have to admit, even with all the problems I keep running into that it is nice to get back into Team Yankee.

My First Circle Orboros Picks

I spend a day looking over my options for what to play in Circle Orboros and I have to say I am overwhelmed! I could tell the faction deck was pretty thick but I was still surprise at how many cards I got. Even with a handful of duplicates and warlocks needing 2 cards each, I feel like I have more options with Circle Orboros than with any other faction tabletop game I've committed to outside of maybe Battletech. Even if I was in a position to immediate start collecting, I would definitely play many many games with proxies so I would have some clue of what to get. With so many choices, trying to balance an army list between my own unique theme, how I want to play the game and what is actually viable is a little daunting. Fortunately I have experience with multiple different gaming systems to help out.

I've made some initial choices for my army which includes my first 10 point list and strangely enough the focus on my army theme help narrow down what I went with. Warlocks are the most important part of the army and I've decided to settle on 3 for now. Kaya the Moonhunter is my Zifa analogy and the warlock I used in my first list. Kaya and Zifa looks nothing alike so I will be making my own model for her. At one time I had a model for Zifa but I never assembled it and it started to tarnish. I will probably have to get a new model for her after I make sure how big Kaya is. The other warlocks I will be moving forward with are the two versions of Morvahna. Both versions have the abilities and spells I could associate with the ruler of my Fairy army. I haven't came up with a name for her yet but how I envision her looking isn't that different from Morvahna. If I like how she plays I will be picking up one or both Morvahna models, eventually. On the other hand I pick Kaya the Moonhunter because no other warlock had a design I could see Zifa using. I will need other warlocks later on when I expand on the Fairy Army's story to include more characters but for now I will just concentrate on the three.

As for the rest of my 10 point list I use a mix of solo units I'm interested in and a few light warbeast to fill it out. The solo units I'm using are a Druid Wilder, Bloodweaver Night Witch and Gallows Grove. I really like the Druid Wilder, like her game effects and thought it would fit perfectly into my Fairy army. If I enjoy her play style the Druid Wilder will be the first Circle Orboros model I will pick up. Bloodweaver Night Witch on the other hand is something that would be in Zifa's army. Will be looking to convert some for Zifa unless I dislike how they perform in the game. Gallows Grove was added to fill out points. Also it would be something easy to convert for Zifa if I keep it apart of my army. The next part of my list is about light warbests. Laris comes free with Kaya and I paid for Scarsfell Griffon, Wild Argus and Woldwyrd. These picks were mainly for me to get a feel for a variety of warbeasts. Since Laris and Kaya is a team I will need to makeup my own conversion for Laris. Depending on how big it is I may kitbash one of my Tyranid Hormagaunts to make a Zifa's Wild Argus. Lastly I realize I have an incomplete Warhammer Cockatrice which I could use to convert into a Scarsfell Griffon, or one of the other Griffons. Just need to get with my friend so I can compare sizes for my plan conversion to his Trollbloods. Once I get that done I can start work on my custom versions. I also would like to play with my 10 point list this week but that may not happen until next week. I will post any progress I make with Hordes here. Until next time!

Looking into Hordes

Warmachine/Hordes has been on my radar for a while now. I've been on the verge of picking up Warpborn Skinwalkers to use as Chaos Ogres for some time. A few years ago I played a demo of Warmachine and I enjoy the experience. I didn't get into Warmachine at the time because I wasn't that fond of the steampunk genre. Of course I didn't know about Hordes then.

If you don't know what I'm talking about Warmachine and Hordes are two related but different sister games. They each have mechanics unique to them. Warmachine is game base around having a wizard whom controls arcane golem-like constructs called Warjacks. Hordes is based around having a wizard whom controls monstrous beast. Both systems are compatible with each other so a Warmachine army can fight against a Horde force. Storywise both games are in the same fictional universe called Iron Kingdoms.

Iron Kingdoms on a whole seems to be a mix of traditional fantasy and steampunk. And since I'm still not a fan of steampunk, you are probably wondering what change? Well, it starts with my friend Phil. He is my Warhammer friend. He plays a lot more games than I do and sometimes he gets in the mood to play a certain game for a while. He recently told me he has the itch to play Hordes lately. For me this would be a good time to learn the game. Phil owns a large collection of Trollbloods, enough for the both of us play each other. Beside Phil, my local gaming store has a large community of Warmachine/Hordes players. I'm sure that once I get my own army I can easily setup or join a Warmachine/Hordes campaign.

The question for me is which force to pick? I was surprised when I look into what is available that there were only 4 Horde nations plus mercenaries. I had to remind myself that Hordes is technically only half of the game. Of the four nations I keep coming back to Circle Orboros. Whatever I play in Hordes, that force will be connected to the fluff I've started here on the blog. In thinking about how I want to expand my story, I came up with three ideas I could use a Hordes force. Unfortunately all three ideas would be closest represented by Circle Orboros. Those ideas are a Zifa force, a Fairy/Nature force and a off-shoot of the Shieldmaidens. My first idea for Hordes was a Zifa Winter small force. Zifa has been one of my favorite characters even though most if not all of her material has been deleted here because of cancelled campaigns. She is a chaos sorcerer and apprentice to the Chaos King. Her epithet is Dark Druid and more so than my other characters I envision her army looking quite a bit different than what my collection can show. The downside to me making a Zifa army is that I want to expand my collection beyond chaos and Zifa's Horde army would probably require more than a few conversions. The second option is a brand new army for me. I develop the idea of a nature army while working on the plot of my Holy Moon series. I haven't read the fluff of the Circle Orboros but my guess would be its similar to what I have in mind for my nature army. The third option I beginning to think would not be a very good fit. I'm still working on who and what the Shieldmaidens are and while I can imagine part of the organization could have a druid-like element to it, that would be a reach and takes them in a direction I'm not sure about yet. The reason I pick Circle Orboros for the Shieldmaidens is because the other 3 Hordes nations fit the maidens even less.

I guess with what I've said so far my choice for what to play in Hordes should be obvious. Just need to come up with a name for my fairy/nature army. I did play my first game of Hordes today and I enjoy it very much. I am confident now that Hordes will be a game I can get into though it will be a while before I will have my own army. I did pick up the Circle Orboros 2016 deck so I should have all the stats of every Circle Orboros unit in the game. This will allow me to play with proxies until I am able to purchase an actual force. Plus since I will have the rules and look up model's base sizes, I can kitbash my leftover Chaos stuff to make part of my Zifa army as well. My Zifa army and fairy army will look nothing alike but while I am short on both, I don't mind mixing them up. Let see where Hordes take me!

A Short Update

I'm current working on a few pieces that I had hope would be out soon. An article about my BattleTech Campaign plans, possible new game I'm thinking about getting into, the paint job on my Team Yankee tanks or a Topic of the Week were all things I was working on and had hope at least one of them would be out by now. That didn't happen thanks in part to me getting extremely sick this week. I wasn't able to accomplish anything this week (outside of planning out my National Write a Novel Month novel for this year somehow through delirium). After seeing a doctor today I have manage to recover significantly and hope to release something this weekend. I can only hope because I haven't heal from my illness yet, I'm just feeling much better. Thank you for your interest.

Holy Moon Update

With everything else that I'm working on I felt I need to discuss the reasons why my Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights series hasn't started yet. First and foremost when I decided to do Holy Moon I had very little planned out. I figured that since many of the plot points were going to be decided by the results of game battles, I could just make up the story as I went along. The only things I had worked out was the meaning of the name and concepts of a few main characters that I later work to flesh out. I figure I could just wing it since the result of games would have an affect on the story. I saw myself similar to being a comic book/manga writers that release a new chapter weekly or monthly. But then I realize I was mistaken. Most manga artist probably don't write their stories on the fly. They spend a lot of time developing their story before its starts being release. Sure in many cases the story develops in ways that is either different or in new ways the author didn't initially plan but overall professional writers knows the high points of their story. I know of examples of manga artist putting their work on hiatus so they focus working on their story.

Realizing this, I knew I was unprepared to start writing a serial. Of course I can't have a hard outline of the plot since I want game results to have an impact on the story. However I do need to have a better understanding of my plot elements. In advance I need to know who are the major players in the world that have the potential of appearing in the story and I need to know what are their goals. That way I will have a firm understanding of what the stakes are in each battle as well as know what each side will do next if they win/lose. So on this front I need to do a lot of prep work to make the vision I have for my series work. Prep work I will enjoy doing and now have more time for.

For most of this year Team Yankee has crowded out my other miniature hobbies, which is another reason I haven't done anything with Holy Moon. But now that my podcasting partner is focusing his time on a different project, it doesn't make as much since for me to all my hobby time into Team Yankee at the moment. Which is a little sad with so much movement with Team Yankee as West Germans were just release and British is coming out next month! I didn't expect British to be coming so soon. I'm not completely abandoning Team Yankee as I still have a lot of work to do on my models but since it is unlikely I will be able to play a game of it anytime soon, it is now no longer a focus of me.

Speaking of models that need work, there is one last point I want to make on the Holy Moon delay. I don't limit my imagination to the games I'm playing. Instead I let it run wild and then later try to conform those ideas into a game system. As a result many of the story concepts I want to write about are models that I do not own yet. And the ones that I do are unassembled and/or are not painted. Painting has always been my bane in this hobby. Getting something on the table so I can play has always been my one number priority. Painting has been an important but distance second. But that is not going to work for essentially a miniature comic so I need to overcome my personal insecurities with painting. Getting my sizeable collection fully assembled and painted is not only a must but a start for something new for me as well. Up to this point I never had to consider buying or building terrain. I have always join communities that already had plenty of terrain so their was no need for me to add to it. With the Holy Moon project I now have great need for not only my own terrain but also miniature set pieces you would find in a board game. I can still use the terrain at my local gaming store when I'm playing out the game battles. What I need terrain for is the fiction sections of Holy Moon. Much like a light novel, I want to have a few images to go with my story parts. That means I need appropriate terrain to take pictures of. I'm thinking I will be reusing a handful of locations for these images. Throne room, meeting hall, camp fire and the like. So I don't have to pick up a lot of terrain (at least not immediately) but considering I currently have none this will take some time. And the exact terrain I will need will be depended on where my prep work discuss above will take me. Since this all will take a while, in the mean time I will post pictures of finished Holy Moon models. This will gives myself and anyone interested a sense of progression until Holy Moon is ready to start. Thanks for your interest.

Fulda Gap Ending

It was decided to end the campaign a little earlier than planned after 20 games played instead of 24. Since it was the last day of the campaign (this was about a month ago) Tracy and myself decided to travel to Oklahoma so we could play with the rest of the group. With nearly everyone together we finish the campaign with 2 team battles, played simultaneous. Both games were 2 versus 2 using the No Retreat mission. While no one had access to additional points, all the other special campaign rules were in affect including a few new ones. The US couldn't use laser-guided projectiles except with off-board artillery. The reason for this was to assume the US side had run low on copperhead ammunition since every US player spam them. The US reserve rules were change in that the roll succeeds on a 4+ instead of a 5+. Lastly the US morale rules were changed. As long as the total US force has more than 50% of its formations in Good Spirits and at least 1 US force commander on the table then no formation morale check is need. Once the percent drops below 50 then any US force that cannot make a formation check fails automatically and is removed at the end of US turn. All other morale checks follow the normal rules. The reason for this change was to make sure a player didn't get eliminated too early. In the end it didn't affect either of the 2 games.

I had plan to do a battle report of the game I was apart of but that would have require more time than I had. Battle reports greatly extends the length of a game because I have to pause after every turn to take pictures and notes. Since there was a very real end time and teams games have the potential take longer than one on one games, I decide to scrap the battle report plan. Here are some pictures I took of the game.

The US and Soviets forces each won one game. The US won the game I was apart of. The game was played along the length of the table and a river bisected the battlefield. It was ruled that the T-72s could cross the river with a bogging check but couldn't end their turn on it. We as the US players line the river with minefields. This made the river effectively a barrier that the Soviet didn't want to cross. Since they couldn't proceed with their swarm of T-72s and BMPs, the Soviets gamble by advancing their air support and had hopes of taking out high priority targets. Unfortunately for the Soviets, the US brought plenty of anti-aircraft fire to deal with the Soviet's air. Without ground support, the Hinds and Frogfoots vanish into balls of smoke and fire. With the rest of the Soviet's force stalled, it gave the US time to get reserves in. The US off-board artillery drop a minefield into the middle of a swarm of Soviet infantry and vehicles which locked them down and served as the final nail in the coffin. I brought six M109s and I could drop bombardments that could easily hit 10 or more infantry and vehicles (their first shot was to drop 2 more minefields). With so much concentrated firepower the Soviets were just shredded. By turn 3 one of the Soviet players were completely eliminated. The other Soviet player wanted to continue a little longer but after one more turn realize there was nothing he could do.

The results on the other table were vastly different. I wasn't able to follow what was going on but I did get a few highlights. Like our table, the US over there had plenty of anti-aircraft fire power. Realizing this Tracy loitered his Hinds off the board until the Soviet ground forces were able to deal with some of that AA. Once it was safe Tracy brought the Hinds back on the board, which took the US players by surprise. I think they completely forgot about the Hinds. The game was decided when Tracy's partner dash an unit on to the objective without the US players realizing it. The Soviet player didn't know dashing units cannot take objective but the US player now alerted to the danger was unable to contest or remove the unit so the Soviets won anyway.

During the game I had over heard US won air superiority. I still don't fully understand how the extra air assets is determine but apparently air superiority for one side is a possibility. What this means is that one side gets the maximum air assets available while the other gets very little. Now knowing this, there was a past campaign turn where I am pretty sure Soviets won air superiority. For the final games, this was another factor for the US on my table winning so big. Not sure how Tracy was able to manage on the other table but it seems the Soviets over there were in full control of that game.

The final campaign score was 70 to 54 (or something like that) for a Soviet victory. I didn't write down the final score but it was in that range. Overall the campaign was very fun to be apart of. The Campaign Manager came up with many interesting and unique mechanics for the campaign. Some I thought were great and added to the game, while others probably sounded better on paper than in practice. My personal favorite aspect of the campaign was that battles were based on real locations. Using google maps as a reference, I got to play on uniquely design game boards that players probably would never that thought to setup. Playing on these types of boards change how I see Team Yankee for the better. Now that the campaign is over, discussion can be done to improve the ideas used in this campaign so that the next one will be even better. At this point I am unsure if I will be able to participate in the next campaign though I will love to follow what's going on with it. In the meantime I will continue be working on Team Yankee models. Until next time!