DE: Competitive List Predictions

What is competitive and what is not?

As players of all skill levels get more accustomed to the new Dark Eldar codex, one of the questions I see popping up all over the place is "what's competitive?"  Well, first thing's first.  The book has only been out of a couple of days, but I think I have my bearings point in the right direction for what is going to be good in competitive DE play.  However, what I can't see too clearly is just how much much of Dark Eldar is going to be in them.  What I mean by that exactly?  I'm referring to how many Dark Eldar units will make the cut into a GT winning list and roughly what percentage of the army will be from the book itself.

You've all heard about soups, right?  When you hear something like Imperial soup, this is referring to a mixture of detachments taken from different army books to form an army.  Most of the time, this is done for competitive reasons and why there have been countless articles out there complaining about this.  Thinking back towards the earliest days of Allies, it's true:  Not all army books are created equal and if no one allies with anyone else, this would make the imbalance stand out even more.  However, the same could be said about certain armies not being to ally with other armies.  Aeldari soup is nowhere close to having the number of options as Imperial soup, while armies like Necrons are pretty much left to fend for themselves.

Allied armies, in general, have room to be the most competitive.  While mono-faction armies can be good, they normally result in spamming of a key unit that's just outrageously cost-efficient or so good that you would be stupid not to take a lot of them.  An example of this can be the Index Tau Commander or the current Flyrant spam that you're seeing from Tyranid players.  Necrons are reduced to spamming crap like triple C'Tan vaults because they have no one to really ally with.

However, when you look at Imperials, you get crap like Guard CP batteries for dirt cheap and having access to an easy +6 CP from cost-effective battalions.  You can then supplement that with super-effective AdMech Robots and Shield-Captains on Dawneagles.

Some other competitive lists out there:
Ynnari Dark Reapers w/ Saim-Hann Spears
Shining Spears w/ Hemlocks
Magnus w/ Tzaangor herds
Morty Poxbombs
Dark Talon spam
Blood Angels w/ Tallaran Superheavy
Azrael Hellblaster deathstars
..etc

So, the question I've been asking myself over the last couple of days is where Dark Eldar fits in the picture now.  What do we have in our book that is so good that we might see mono-army builds, or what do we have that is incredibly cost-effective to the point that we can replace Dark Reapers or Saim-Hann Spears when it comes to battle prowess?  Above all, what do we have in our book that will make us a competitive pick to the point that WAAC players will take our army over all other options out there in the meta?

Prophet Grots are actually pretty gross.. in a super good way.

These are pretty serious questions to any competitive player and this is one of those things that will spark a lot of controversies.  Just recently, I came back from arguing on the internets about Wych hordes (100+ Wyches) being the next best thing.  The first thing I thought to myself:  ARE YOU GUYS NUTS?  Seriously, Wyches are pretty good, but I wouldn't rank them better to the cost-effectiveness of 6 ppm Warriors, plentiful Dissie/Blasters, or the sheer durability of a 35-point Grot that has 4W, 4++ and FNP with a healthy amount of attacks and great movement.  Truth be told, it boggles my mind when I see people screaming that Wyches are the best thing in the codex.  I'm not sure if they're just outright trolling, or all the dust from their shelved Wyches finally polluted their brains.

Maybe it's something Nick said over on his blog post about the DE book.  Maybe this is why people are going all apeshit over Wyches but yet missing the key ingredients on why a Wych heavy list like Nick's example works in the first place.  I'll tell you the secret:  Whenever you buy Wyches, you give up on shooting and other strong and competitive options there are in the entire Aeldari faction.  In order for Wyches to be effective, the unit composition has to be correct because you need the pressure to be applied correctly and effectively.  This means you need to also buy Reavers or Grots to be part of the attack because they are also high-value targets that threaten the enemy army in a bigger way (Reavers enter combat quickly and Grots just smash).  All this added pressure then takes away from your shooting elements such as a Black Heart Spearhead of 4-5 Ravagers sitting in the backfield raining shit on your opponents.  What this article doesn't mean is that you should go out and buy 100 Wyches to put them on the table.  That's just an expensive and stupid investment.

Now that I'm done ranting, let's get back down to business.  I want this thread to spark controversy but I also want to spark a serious thought experiment.  What do we have in our book that can possibly uproot the other unit combinations from the meta and say that ours is superior?

Here are my picks:

• Blackheart Spearhead - Archon with Cunning and Living Muse, with a lot of Ravagers armed with Dissies.  Gives you an amazing trait, shooting consistency and access to Agents of Vect.
• Grot walls or meat mountains - Go Prophets with big Grot walls, WWP them in or run them up the field with T5/6, 4++, FNP and 4W a piece with above average attacks.  The idea here is to combine the effort with Wyches or Reavers to apply maximum pressure.
• Cursed Blade Wyches, but only in combination with Reavers or Grot Walls - Wyches by themselves are mediocre at best.  Even if you put 100 of them down on the table, I can't see them killing a whole bunch of applying good pressure until you mix them in with Grots or Reavers for added pressure.  Why Cursed Blade?  Because you will need the fearless or else people will shoot your ass to half and watch the rest crumble from morale.
• T5 Reavers are really good too because they're fast enough to support any area of the battlefield and can supply decent anti-armor as well.

While I didn't call out Kabalite Warriors specifically, I do want to mention that I think we're still in the process of figuring stuff out.  I'm talking specifically about Obsession combinations like my Kabal of the Black Rose (Black Heart + Obsidian Rose) or even Flayed Skull Venom spam.  People are STILL debating what Obsessions to take for the Wych cults, but I think everyone and their mother agrees that Prophets is probably the best Coven.

Regardless of this early impression, I will say that in the next couple of days I'll be thinking heavily about Eldar soup and what that means from a competitive standpoint.  While Ynnari is pretty meh for me right now, I'm still very excited to mix in Alaitoc units with a Black Heart Spearhead.  I'm also excited to start playing around with just pure Aledari and say screw the Obsessions, let's just go for good value units.  Once the new Harlequins book drops, you will see that this endless debate on what's the best competitive DE list will change again.  Then again, we're not even sure we're ever going to see a pure DE list at the top tables.  I personally think Farseers are just so good I'm going out of my way to include them in my more competitive lists.

The Shiny Trashcan Effect

Greetings from debt purgatory!

We are half way through paying off our construction debt for our expansion project started in 2014. Do you remember 2014? Fantasy Flight Games was still an independent company, Magic was going strong and the big news story was the outbreak of Ebola. Good times. Our Kickstarter did fund successfully that year. We did complete the project, albeit two years late. We did send out all the rewards, and one refund to that jackass who likes to leave me (hidden) blog comments. That saga is a whole other story (it's in the book).

Customers occasionally come in, tell us how they're great supporters of ours, how they buy all their games from us and ... holy hell, you built a second floor!!! Yes, thank you, thank you. Mmm hmmm. I stopped mentioning it was years ago. Snark is not appreciated and we need all the customers we can get. Got debt to pay down.

So how are we doing? It's a bit of a struggle making loan payments and trying to grow during a period of industry transition. There are projects I would like to do. There's a white board in my office with $20,000 worth of stuff. Yet, we just improved the store in our bid to obtain Wizards of the Coast "premium" status, and we somehow came up with the thousands to do that.

Yes, thousands of dollars for a nebulous status. However, this is exactly what I had been asking for. Recognition of hard work and capital spent to improve a venue rather than shoeboxes of cardboard (even though the cardboard is more in line with success with the WOTC model). How could I not pursue this? When motivated, we can make things happen. In the future we shall refer to this as the Shiny Trashcan Effect.

Our sales necessary for growth, the needed engine to pay off our debt, have exceeded expectations. We saw a large jump when the space was complete, but it was a one time thing (about three times bigger than projected). We immediately went back to the grind. It brought home the fact that the space is really important to a small subset of customers (20%). That money spent on doubling inventory would have seen growth over years, but probably slower growth, rather than all at once. There's also the question of whether doing nothing at all would have led to the same growth rate, considering we struggled to focus the business in the Kickstarter and construction year. No, no, this will have longer term benefits, if we can leverage them.

Anyway, we're up 25% this year, due to a number of factors, so I'll continue to fantasize about that white board and work on projects that don't require intensive capital. And maybe we'll hit Premium status with WOTC and see some benefit there.

R.I.P. Matthew Frederick, One Of The Great Unpublished Game Designers

Some time ago -- almost 2 decades now -- I stumbled across a website called the Board Game Designers Forum. At the time I had recently graduated college and gotten a job, many of my friends had moved away, and I was looking for something to fill my time. It was a perfect storm that led to my eventual career in game design, development, and publishing, and it all started on that fateful forum.

In the early days of BGDF, I read a lot of posts, I wrote a lot of posts, and I spent a lot of time in the IRC chat room with some of the forum regulars. Several of those regulars have gone on to see great success in the game industry as designers, artists, or publishers (or all three)!

One of those regulars, an admin in fact, went by the handle FastLearner. His name was Matthew Frederick. Matthew was ever-present, always insightful, and always made sure the forums were going strong. He's the one that created this BGDF logo:

A logo I placed on the back of the box for both Terra Prime and Eminent Domain, as a nod to the role the forums played in the design of those games.

One of my favorite aspects of the site was something called the Game Design Showdown, which turned into a monthly design challenge where, given a week and a theme, component restriction, or other guidelines, you could submit an entry. Entries were posted anonymously, and then voted on. There was no prize, and the submissions were not intended to be finished, tested games anyway, but the challenge was a good way to exercise the design muscles, and I know of several ideas from the GDS that went on to become fully fleshed out (and in some cases published) games. I say that's what the GDS turned into, but it started as a sort of real time challenge in the chat room, run by FastLearner, where instead of a week to come up with a game idea, you had just minutes! We only did that a couple of times, but it was great fun, and it opened the door to the larger Game Design Showdown, which still runs today if I'm not mistaken.

As it happens, Matthew lived in Phoenix, AZ -- just up the street from my hometown of Tucson. A couple of times I drove up and got together with Matthew... we talked about our game designs, even played each other's games. Matthew was one of the players who I wrangled into may first two playtests of UK designer David Brain's prototype: All For One, and we did a prototype swap (I left 8/7 Central with him, and brought home his mountain climbing themed game: Everest). I recall several of Matthew's games that I played, and they were all very good:

Everest was a middle-weight euro-style game about drafting a team of climbers (with sponsorship from various countries), and climbing Mount Everest. There were different terrain types to navigate, and your climbers were better at some than others. You could set up camps along the way where you could rest your team. There were rewards for reaching certain elevations first, including a large reward for reaching the top of the mountain. It was a real, honest to goodness game, on par with a lot of the stuff I've played off store shelves.

Velociracers was a card driven game where you, a Velociraptor, raced around an island grabbing up eggs and trying to keep ahead of the T-rex that was hot on your heels. Each turn you would play one of your cards, and you wouldn't get them back until you did a special "rest" action. There were mechanisms in place to keep the dinos bunched in a pack -- a headwind to keep the front runners from getting too far ahead, and cards that let you advance more the farther back in the pack you were. Fall too far behind and the T-rex will hurt you, much like taking damage in Snow Tails. Like all of Matthew's games, this felt fully fleshed out, even if he wasn't happy with it.

Elvencraft was another excellent design, where you would move around an Elven village in the trees, connected by bridges (which I think you would build, if I remember correctly), collecting items and crafting them into better items. I don't remember all the details of this one, but I do recall it feeling like a real game as well.

Cow Tipping was a small, Rummy-style card game that a nascent TMG considered publishing. It had adorable art and a cute theme of gangs of cows taking revenge on people by tipping over vehicles stopped in traffic. Motorcycles required a smaller gang (set or run) of cows to tip, but are worth fewer points. Buses were the most valuable, but of course required the largest gangs to tip. I recently re-read my email threads with Matthew about this game.

As a neophyte developer, I was perhaps overzealous about wanting to change Cow Tipping a lot. In the end, TMG did not publish that game, but Matthew gave me some important feedback that I still need to take to heart at times- he said something to the effect of "with all those changes, what exactly are you licencing from me?" That is a significant question for a few reasons. Not only was it a wake up call to me as I stepped into the game industry as a professional developer, but it also stands in stark contrast to some of the sentiments I've seen in modern designers who might submit an unfinished game with the expectation that the publisher will finish it for them. In contrast, all of Matthew's games were fully fleshed out, thoroughly tested, and more complete than many submissions I've received over the years.

About a decade ago, I lost touch with Matthew. I wasn't hanging out in the BGDF forums anymore, and I didn't travel to Phoenix very often. I didn't have much occasion to reach out to him, and from what I could gather, he had a very busy life, sometimes plagued with additional hardships outside his own control. I did follow Matthew on Twitter, and occasionally saw some snippet of his life scroll through my timeline, and every time it made me wonder "what ever happened to that guy?"

Back in October, just a few months ago, Matthew sent me a Twitter DM, seemingly out of the blue. It was a very complimentary message, just saying that he was pleased and impressed to hear how well I'm respected in the industry. Apparently Matthew had followed my career, or was at least aware of it. He followed that with another message:

Perhaps one day we'll get together again and reminisce about the old days and talk about what's happened in the intervening years.

Two months later, I was sad to hear that Matthew was gone. I had gathered from tweets I'd seen that Matthew was sick -- fighting some kind of cancer. I know now that his message to me was something of a "goodbye," and I'm sorry I didn't drop everything right then and there and drive up to Phoenix to see him one last time, maybe play a game, or do that reminiscing he mentioned.

Matthew, I'd like to thank you for being the man that you were. The pillar of the game design community which brought me from a casual Magic player to a professional game designer. You are far and away the best designer I know, and the gaming world is poorer now that you're gone.

You will be missed.

Let's Play Grand Theft Auto V Walkthrough Part - 1 [1080P HD] (60 FPS) G...

Dona Nobis Pacem And Final Fantasy X

At Holy Mass as the priest holds the Sacred Host in His Hand, he strikes his breast three times saying-

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace

This moment occurs just after Sacred Host is broken, one of the moment which mystically shows forth the Sacrifice Our Lord offers on the Cross and that His perfect sacrifice has been accepted to grant us peace- peace between humanity and Almighty God in the New and Everlasting Covenant. 

Holy Mass renews this sacrifice it brings this Once and For all sacrifice into the here and now, God uses the rites of the Mass to intersect history anew with this One Sacrifice, bringing its efficacy, applying its merits to those who are present and who have interiorly united themselves to the sacred rites.

He does this through His Sacred Priesthood- those to Whom He Himself gave the command, 

"Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is My Body which will be given up for you- do this as a memorial of Me", a sacred rites, through which, according to St. Paul, "you are proclaiming the Lord's death, until He comes".

This brings me to the thought, which I have shared previously, about "the calm" of Final Fantasy X.

When the final summon is made, when the summoner gives his/her life in sacrifice, sin is defeated, the evil monster is chained up once more, and a period of peace is given to the world.

Let's skip the fact that as the plot of FFX develops the whole Yevon religion is revealed to be a sham, but the fact of the matter is, the final summonings did bring calm, and this was because of the self-less courage of the summoners.

Here is the extract from X about The Calm, only watch the first 5 mins, after that it moves on. 

Notice the desire for this Calm that the people have, and the language used, it is the period of peace during which people can raise their families without fear. The calm that parents long for the safety of their children, and children so they can be free from nightmares and sleep peacefully in their beds.

Maybe we need to try and see the Sacrifice of the Mass like this- in attending Holy Mass, in being there at this Have Mercy on us! Have Mercy on us! Grant us peace! The period of calm is ushered in to our lives, it envelops us, we are surrounded in Our Lord's merits mediated through the Holy Sacrifice- the Final Summoning. 

This doesn't mean we won't suffer from illness, it doesn't mean endless prosperity, but neither did the final summoning in X, but what it means is freedom from sin, from the power of the Devil, and for those who are living in the state of grace, the promise of Eternal Calm, of which this present time will just be a foreshadowing.

With these thoughts in mind-- Introeamus ad altare Dei.

DE: New FAQ And Updated Lists!

New FAQ and updated lists.

Ho ho ho, a day after I blog about competitive play and Dark Eldar's place in the meta, GW drops a huge FAQ that extends to all armies and changes the way we play the game.

You can find all the good jazz right here, but I'll sum up the main highlights of how this changes the way I build my armies going forward.  Funny enough, DE didn't change all that much and it was really those other armies out there that got a big calibration.

Here are the big highlights from the FAQ:

• Smite spam is now harder to cast
• Character targeting changed so other characters can't block targeting
• Battalions and Brigades now generate +5 CPs and +12 CPs!
• You only get one kind of Ignore save wounds
• Various point changes (increase to CW units and Dark Reapers)
• You cannot have more than 3 datasheets in a 2K game except troops and transports
• Soups got hit so you can't mix as hard, you just have to read it
• Reserves also changed so first turn alphas are not as devastating

There's a lot of changes here the directly affects competitive play, but my favorite change of all is probably the rule of 3.  Not being able to spam is really awesome of the game's health.  The soup changes also make it so you can't just bring the most powerful units of all different books into a single detachment and that's awesome.  The only one I'm not too sure about is the fact that Battalions and Brigades generate so much CP now.  While I can understand GW's intention here to fix the more elite armies limited CPs, this benefits everyone.  This means that IG CP batteries with their cheap ass Brigades are in season.. even more so than they were before.  Lastly, the changes to Reserves alpha striking is not created equal with all the armies out there.  Some are much more effective than others, but other armies are made better when these kind of assaults are part of their strategic repertoire.

With that said, the only thing I'm really bummed out about is the fact that the Farseer, Warlock, and Spiritseer went up in price.  I was actually in the middle of writing out a list last night, but now that the FAQ has dropped, I'm going to update all the lists I'm using in one go!

Here they are:

Kabal of the Black Rose

1999 // 10 CP

Obsidian Rose Bat +5 CP

HQ:

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94

TROOP:

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SC = 104

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SC = 104

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SC = 104

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SC = 104

+++

Black Heart Spear +1 CP

HQ:

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91

Warlord: Cunning, Living Muse

TROOP:

7x Warriors, Blaster, BP = 69

PARTY BUS:

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

HEAVY:

Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

+++

Black Heart Wing +1 CP

FLYER:

Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145

Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145

Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145

>>>

Firepower:

11 Dark Lances at BS3+

9 Dissies at BS3+

9 Blasters at BS3+

3 Blasters at BS2+

3 Razorwing Missiles at BS3+

4 Splinter Cannons at BS3+

40 Splinter Rifles at BS3+

This my pure DE Kabal list combining the range power that is Obsidian Rose with the resilience of Black Heart.  I call this my Kabal of the Black Rose and it has been undefeated since the Codex came out.  A lot of firepower, a lot of pain.

Alaitoc Black Spear

2000 // 10 CP

Alaitoc Bat +5 CP

HQ:

Farseer Skyrunner = 135

Doom, Mind War

Warlock = 55
Protect/Jinx

TROOP:

5x Rangers = 60

5x Rangers = 60

5x Rangers = 60

+++

Alaitoc Wing +1 CP

FLYER:

Hemlock Wraithfighter = 210

Jinx

Hemlock Wraithfighter = 210

Jinx

Crimson Hunter Exarch, 2x Bright Lance = 175

+++

Black Heart Spear +1 CP

HQ:

Archon, Huskblade, Blaster = 93

Cunning, Living Muse

TROOP:

10x Warriors, 2x Blasters, SC = 104

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

189

10x Warriors, 2x Blasters, SC = 104

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

189

10x Warriors, 2x Blasters, SC = 104

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

189

HEAVY:

Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

>>>

Firepower:

9 Disintegrators at BS3+

3 Dark Lances at BS3+

2 Bright Lances at BS2+

1 Pulse Laser at BS2+

6 Blasters at BS3+

1 Blaster at BS2+

3 Splinter Cannons at BS3+

4 Heavy D-Sycthes at Auto

21 Splinter Rifles at BS3+

15 Ranger Long Rifle at BS3+

This is my current DE + CW list and I think it's actually pretty decent.  I used it once so far and the combination of Doom/Jinx with DE firepower is just insane.  With the loss of so many lances, having the Crimson Hunter in the army actually helps a lot.

Black Skull Strife

2000 // 14 CP

Flayed Skull Bat +5 CP

HQ:

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91

PARTY BOATS:

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

Raider, Dark Lance = 85

TROOP:

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SCannon = 104

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SCannon = 104

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SCannon = 104

FLYER:

Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145

Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145

+++

Black Heart Spear +1 CP

HQ:

Archon, Huskblade, Blaster = 93

Warlord: Hatred Eternal, Djin Blade

HEAVY:

Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrator = 125

Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrator = 125

Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrator = 125

+++

Strife Bat +5 CP

HQ:

Succubus, Agonizer = 54

Blood Dancer, Whip

Succubus, Agonizer = 54

TROOP:

8x Wyches, Agonizer, Shardnet, BP = 83

8x Wyches, Agonizer, Shardnet, BP = 83

5x Wyches, Agonizer, Shardnet = 49

>>>

Firepower:

9 Disintegrators at BS3+

9 Dark Lances at BS3+

6 Blasters at BS3+

3 Blasters at BS2+

2 Razorwing Missiles at BS3+

3 Splinter Cannons at BS3+

25 Splinter Rifles at BS3+

This is my close-combat list with double Bats and a Black Heart Spear.  This list gives me some great killy units with my Blood Dancer Succubus and Hatred Eternal Archon.  I can also choose to go with more re-rolls with Living Muse and Cunning, but I think I'm going to use this for now because I want to be able to play CC armies occasionally.  I still stand by what I said before in previous posts:  Cults are our best CP battery (especially now with the Bat CP buffs).  Gotta go fast!

HOTT 52 - Weeks 7 Thru 9 - Hordes, Heroes And Scenarios, Oh My!

The latter half of February has been a hectic one for me! GaryCon prep, podcasting, running several games... and still playing HOTT! I just haven't had much time to blog about it.

Later on in this post, I'll get into how I use HOTT (and by extension, DBA) to fight published scenarios from sources such as Neil Thomas's "One Hour Wargames" or Charles Grant's "Scenarios for Wargames."

First, the battles and pictures! 

Week 7 - the Week of the Hordes

I have played with Hordes, but for some reason, I never took advantage of the "replacing hordes" option. I decided to see how it would play out with my Orcs bringing hordes to the fight!

Humans (Militia/Regular)      Spear-General x1 Spear x3 Shooter x2 Riders x4 Blades x2

Orcs (Militia/Regular) - defending Warband-General x1 Warband x2 Shooter x3 Riders x2 Hordes x4 Spear x2

The terrain would be a bit challenging for the attacking humans! That impassable hill split up the forces. The human commander opted to stack the lighter forces to the left, to see how things would play out. The orcs had put their hordes to their left  and the human commander set his blades and spears opposite.

 

To the left flank of the humans, the shooters were quickly cut down by orc archers and by the warbands. The human riders swung around the marsh to attack in the good going but they were pushed back!

On the left flank of the orcs, the hordes marched ahead, with goblin wargs on their flank. Orc spears held reserve to prevent any breakouts. The lines collided and hordes were cut down en-masse by dour blades and spears!



But guess who rolls a 6 for PIPs? The hordes keep coming! Fun!

 

Not wanting to get surrounded, the human riders opted to a strategic retreat and join up with the forces on the other side of the hill. Distance and the hill makes this an expensive retreat, PIP-wise, but forming a column helps! The orcs, seeing the peril, move to reform their own line.

 

The lines form again and smash into each other! With recoils and the warband's penchant for pursuit, the Orc General unit finds himself surrounded! The spears cut down the warband and the Warchief is lost - the Orcs flee the field!

Humans win 6 to 11G.

The hordes made this fun! The orcs rolled a number of 5s and 6s for PIPs, making it easy to bring them back. The orcs started out doing very well with turning back the attack by the riders and shooters, but then the momentum shifted. The humans rolled some great rolls once they reformed the line, and the pursuing Orc General-Warband put himself in a bad position.

Week 8 - the Week of the Hero

This week, I decided to try out a Hero element to see how it played. I put the Hero on the human's side, and I decided to oppose it by putting a Behemoth on the Orcs side.

Humans (Militia/Regular) - defending    Spear-General x1 Spear x3 Shooter x2 Riders x2 Blades x2 Hero x1

Orcs (Regular/Militia) Blade-General x1 Blade x3 Spear x4 Warband x2 Behemoth x1

The humans line up to defend their fort from a force of orcs approaching. The human major details an element of riders to to swing wide as a harassing force. The humans are heartened by the appearance of a local hero and war veteran, Sir Larry, who has come to assist with the defence!



As the lines approach each other, the trolls and Sir Larry eye each other warily.

 

Smash! The lines come together and trade blows! Meanwhile, the riders come sneaking behind, forcing the Orc Warchief to detail a unit to keep an eye on them.

 

The hero and troll trade blows and insults, but neither side lands a telling blow. The orc line begins to crumble, forcing the Warchief to plug the hole. Unfortunately, due to recoils, he finds himself alone and overlapped. A 5v1 roll seals the Warchief's fate as once again, the humans win with a General kill!

Humans win 2-6G.

I was not very impressed with the Hero! He and the troll just pushed each other back and forth the entire combat. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if the Orcs had a Mage to threaten the Hero with bespelling! I'm sure that as I use them more, fun things will happen!

Week 9 - the Week of the Scenario

I've been playing Orcs/Goblins vs. the Humans for 8 weeks now, and the Humans have won each and every time! I thought it was time for a change...

I've written about this book, One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas. It's one of my favorite wargame books, not only for the simple rules, but for the THIRTY scenarios that Neil lays out in the second half of the book.

Scenarios are one of the ways I love to do solo gaming. Set up the situation and let me at it. Between this book and "Scenarios for Wargames" by Charles Grant, I have many situations to play from!

I rolled randomly on my d30 and came up with Scenario 29 - Shambolic Command. This is a fun scenario! The basic jist is that Blue must defend a hill, but is such an inept commander that they can only order a limited number of troops at any one time. 3/4ths of the force are on the hills, with a reserve on the far end of the board. Red's job, with a smaller force, is to take the hill!

Since the Orcs have been getting beaten up quite a bit, I assigned them to Red as the attackers. Blue would try to hold the hill.

The scenario is written so that Blue is numerically superior, so that meant that the Humans would get a 24 AP army, and the Orcs get only a 16 AP army. To implement the "shambolic command", I decided that the Humans would only get 1 or 2 PIPs per turn (1-3, 4-6). I'll go into more details about how I interpreted the scenario for HOTT after the battle report.

Humans (Regular/Militia)  - defending    Hill defense Knight-General x1 Knight x3 Spear x4 Reserve Riders x2 Blades x2

Orcs (Regular/Militia) Spear-General x1 Spear x2 Shooters x2 Knight x2 Hordes x2

 

The layout is per the scenario. I didn't have one hill, so I laid out a series of hills as a ridge for the Humans to guard. The Orcs arrive and slowly march up the ridge. The Human commander positioned himself on his right to prevent the Orc Hordes from flanking. Those 1 to 2 PIPs made the Humans crawl into position. The Orcs prepared to charge!

 

The initial charge was repulsed, with the Humans holding the high ground. (That +1 for being up-hill made a difference!) The Orc Hordes were defeated, but more swarmed towards the hill! On the Human's left flank, the Orc Knights decimated the Shooters and Knight element. The reserves could only look on, with little leadership (PIPs) available. The Human commander had his hands full just trying to keep the battle line organized!

 

The Orc Knights easily dispatched the Human Riders who flung themselves into a desperate counter-attack. The defending Human line stepped back, preparing themselves for another Orc attack that had been reinvigorated by the arrival of more Hordes!

  

The Orcs begin to roll down the Humans' left flank. Then, seeing an opportunity, the Human Spears swarmed around the Orc's Warchief element and destroyed it! Unfortunately, the Humans had lost too many of their own, the bodies littering the hillside. Thus heartened, the Orcs continued grimly on, although they would feel the effects of the loss of the iron fist of their Chief!

  

The Human commander pulled his few troops into a small line on the last hill, as a remaining Human Rider element was wiped out by the Orc Knights. The remaining reserve Human Blades could only watch helplessly as the Human commander became the only element left on the hill...



... and then he was pushed off as well. The Humans fled the ridge, surrendering it to the victorious Orc force!

This was quite a fun battle! It lasted 32 bounds, but the time passed quickly. I really enjoyed how this felt as it played out. The limitation of what the Human commander could do with only 1 to 2 PIPs was a huge factor. The Hordes also made a big contribution, being able to come back and fill in the gaps, adding their influence by overlaps and preventing (mostly) flanking/closing the door maneuvers. 

The loss of the Orc Warchief hampered the Orcs as well, or this would have ended a lot sooner, I think. It meant that, for the most part, my PIPs were halved as each move would take +1 PIP. The orcs were lucky I was rolling a lot of 5s and 6s.

---

Using HOTT with wargame scenarios from books The One Hour Wargame scenarios are written in a generic enough fashion that they can be used by other rules, but they are obviously tuned for Neil Thomas's rules from earlier in the book. To that end, I had to make several allowances to use this particular scenario with HOTT, as well as adjusting some of the rules of HOTT, here's what I did.

- No HOTT stronghold for the defender.

- No HOTT terrain generation - I used the terrain from the scenario as it calls for.

- This scenario called for 6 Blue units and 4 Red units. Using that ratio, I had Blue/Humans with a 24 AP army and Orc/Reds with a 16 AP army. I have random tables of army lists for both values, so I rolled for which armies to use.

For future scenarios, I haven't considered how to include the more fantasy-based units like Mages, Heroes, Clerics, Gods or Dragons yet, as NT's scenarios are decidedly based on non-magical encounters. I might try it in the future, just to see how it works.

- The scenario victory conditions are usually based on objective and time, as versus HOTT's victory conditions based on number of elements eliminated. This specific scenario called for complete control of the hills by 15 turns.

The OHW rules are based on the assumption of a battle of attrition - once units come into contact, they do not break apart until one side is destroyed! Also, the scenario called that only TWO Blue/Human units could move/fight. I think that the turn limit depends on that aspect of the battle.

I decided to ignore the turn limit as well as the limitation of how many units could fight.  I ruled to have victory happen if either the Blue/Human side was convincingly forced off the hill OR if the Red/Orc side lost 11 AP (approx 2/3ds of 16).

- Reinforcements or Unit arrivals - I stick to the schedule as laid out in the scenario. I allow Hordes to be replaced.

- I implemented the "shambolic command" restriction of Blue only moving/fighting 2 units a turn via PIP limitations - Blue/humans could only get 1 to 2 PIPs a turn. I had all units in contact fight.

Overall, I was pleased with the results! I'm looking forward to doing more scenarios with HOTT.

Running And Screaming

"Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming."

-- Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), The Lost World: Jurassic Park

In the past few years there have been several great games such as Dinosaur Island and DinoGenics that were clearly inspired by the Jurassic Park franchise. Interestingly, those games are about building a successful, functioning dinosaur zoo, the one thing that doesn't happen in any of the films; they're always about the dinosaurs escaping and causing chaos. I guess it takes a legitimately licensed game like Jurassic Park Danger! to really understand what the franchise is all about.

It's a one vs. many game based on the first film in the series, where one player takes control of the escaped carnivorous dinosaurs while the others play as a selection of the humans trying to make their way through the malfunctioning park to the helicopter pad and escape.

Each human character has a unique deck of cards giving that player general options such as moving and hiding as well as a few that are specific to each character, such as Ray Arnold's "hold on to your butts" that allows him to turn the electric fences back on, or little Timmy's encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaur behavior. Human players have to carefully manage their cards, choosing the best moments to play certain cards; if a human player ever runs out of cards, their character is eliminated and removed from the game (but not to fear, that player gets a new character to play).

In addition to avoiding the wily dinosaurs, the human characters each have a goal they must accomplish before they can head for the helicopter pad. Most of them just have to go to a specific location to collect their goal token, but some have to perform a specific task: Muldoon the game warden has to distract the Velociraptor, for example. Sneaky Dennis Nedry starts play with his goal token already collected, so all he has to do is make a beeline for the chopper, but he's more likely to be attacked by a dinosaur than the other characters.

The dinosaur player's goal is simple: eat a certain number of humans before they can escape. The dinosaurs move via a deck of cards similar to what the humans have, and each dinosaur has a special ability that they can't use every turn, so their player has to employ some strategy to get the most out of each dinosaur.

With cardboard components and wooden meeples instead of sculpted miniatures, Jurassic Park Danger! has clearly been designed for mass market sale. In an industry that seems increasingly interested in marketing expensive, overproduced, made-to-order games for a small market of mail order consumers (a trend I'm as guilty of supporting as anyone), it's nice to see a cheap, accessible game that's a lot more interesting than we usually see in licensed mass market products.

It's not going to change your life or anything, but it's fun and simple and evokes the source material very well. This might be a good entry level game for younger gamers, people new to the hobby, or even for your regular gaming group if they need a break from Gloomhaven...

Rating: 3 (out of 5) not quite in the same league as most hobby board games, but close, and definitely worth the low price.

• Jurassic Park Danger! official website
• Jurassic Park Danger! on Board Game Geek

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE - PART 2

As I eluded to in the last post, I am working through the numbers trying to decide if an episodic production and release through Kickstarter is a viable option.

So, we now have a course and a destination… Which honestly is a very welcome and refreshing change.

Why use Kickstarter?

As a marketing platform it allows to reach a wider audience, not just my current customers but those new to the hobby and those who never knew DreamForge was even a 'thing'. I think we all know that the train has stalled, and its going to take a lot of effort and lots of attention to get it rolling again. Perhaps there will be a time that I can move off the Kickstarter platform, but for now… The broader exposure is required. This exposure comes at a price, Between the Kickstarter fees, the currency transaction fees and the backer support fees in the form of a post Kickstarter service to collect shipping and allow backers to add items or options, we are looking at near 10% in fees alone.

Expectations:

Not every Kickstarter campaign will succeed, that's OK. If the demand for a particular kit is not there, then its not… No harm no foul, we move on to the next product offering. I completely expect for there to be unfunded projects that never make it to plastic and possibly (if there was enough interest) may see a resin release instead. There will be changes to how DreamForge approaches on hand inventory and even they type of products offered, not all offerings need to be Iron Core specific, it provides far more flexibility in product development than making sure each product fits neatly into the project I have already started. If I get an itch to do…well anything, it gives a platform to see if all of you are also interested.

How will that work? And what does that look like from the customers side?

The plan is to have a very focused Kickstarter for a single product, its actual production costs and any profits expected will need to be folded into the funding goal. This is a strong departure from the retail model, where revenues are gained over time and the investment/debt is front loaded.

Product availability outside the initial Kickstarter will be limited, 10% to 20% beyond the total needed to fulfill the Kickstarter will be run, some of that will be soaked up by the inevitable issues, damaged kits, mispacked or missing items from a kit and kits that never make it to the backer and get lost in transit. 

There may be re-runs offered on popular kits in future Kickstarter's, but there will be minimums that need to be met, typically a 500 unit run will be needed. If I feel that the kit will sell, I may assist with purchasing some of that re-run myself, to provide stock on hand. The best way for a customer to approach this is to buy what you want and what you think you will need at the time of the offering, I cannot make a promise that there will be a second run if the overall interest is not there.

Customers will need to pay for the actual shipping costs for the products they back.

Shipping, as we all know is stuuupid expensive from the US to anywhere outside its borders. Each Kickstarter will be shipped directly from China to mitigate the expense to the customer as much as possible, this means most of the world will likely see a drastic cost reduction, but the US will see an increase. Why don't I just ship the US from the US? Well, because it's a hidden cost, one that would need to be calculated into the Kickstarter… Someone has to pay to get it to the US before it could be sent out from our warehouse, add to this the staffing costs, the shipping package costs and overhead, and it becomes a real issue that has not been factored into the per kit price… We are running as lean as possible, to provide a per kit price that is as low as possible, there will be no room for uncalculated expenses.

How are the Kickstarter's structured?

This is open for revision, but the plan is to absorb the costs and required profits into a 1000 minimum unit run. If it costs $40,000 for the molds, production, boxes and services, then the cost of each unit would be $40.00. 

What happens if a Kickstarter goes nuts and the total funding far outstrips the required funding goal? Do you get a discount? Discounts will be offered when you pick up multiple kits, not by the overall success of a product. Those are profits that get re-invested to make DreamForge healthy, to pay for game development, to pay for additional stock, to help pay for re-release of the current line of kits, as those tools will need to be re-cut at some point. I am not pulling the discount off the table, but for the foreseeable future, I have a lot of catching up to do and core development that needs to happen for DreamForge to grow and thrive.

I want to be clear, this is not going to be a song and dance Kickstarter model, there 'may' be extras offered if there is room on the sprues, ( I will try to pack them the best that I can) but anything extra in the form of products adds to the costs and I am not bulking the costs to deal with that. I am trying to keep the price per kit to you as low as I possibly can.

Longer term with the releases and stock on hand.

Obviously, this model does is not ideal for some aspects of brand development, limited supply concerns may not be ideal but it's not unusual when we look around the industry and other companies that made their way on Kickstarter. I am not GW, I do not have their sales volume or the resources available to behave like GW. Please understand that expecting a small manufacture in plastic to be able to behave and function as one of the top two or three in the industry, may not really be a reasonable expectation. I will strive to get there, but until the financial aspect of that shift make sense, I will be doing what is best for the growth of the company with the resources available. 

I think we can all agree, that Iron Core needs at least two to three full factions, terrain and a rules set, so as we move through these requirements, I will try to weight when it becomes viable as its own free standing IP. The goal is to grow the brand, expand the product offering, make available some of the older kits and even start to offer some options for those not interested in Iron Core. Fantasy, Cyberpunk and a myriad of other avenues are available and the wider the base of offerings, the more stable the base.

All of this is dependent on me, making what you want, delivered at a reasonable price within a reasonable time.

I am very excited about the prospect and the future. I am really looking forward to exploring your 'needful things' and if they can be created and successfully funded in an episodic, backer driven environment. I hope that you join be on this new course and help guide my had in future releases.

Soooo many itches to scratch, so little time :P

I will be reaching out in a few locations looking for honest feedback and direction from all of you.

• Through surveys sent to my mailing list… So please sign up on the DreamForge-Games website if you have not.

• Through my Facebook group DreamForge-GamesArtist Retreat  (please do not try to message me here) For whatever reason FB and I do not sync well…. I must be an old fart, not a huge fan of FB or twitter :P

• On Dakka Dakka (I could start my own forum but it's a waste of energy, at least at this stage)

• And, well...here but its not very good for two way conversations.