Ish

The mental image of a Knight-Gallant reaching into a third-story window, plucking up some hapless Guardsman, and then chucking him across the skyline does bring back some fond memories of pumping fistfuls of quarters into  Rampage...

Faction Focus: Hungry Space Bugs is out today, but the real gem in the article is that they’re telling us what Dense Cover does.

I like it, I like it a lot... Although I suppose it is going to depend a lot on what counts as “Dense Cover.”

But it should make for some nice, tense, house-to-house fighting on dense Stalingrad type boards or nasty point blank shootouts on jungle boards. Gas up the flamers, ladies and gents.

I finally managed to slap some paint on something! 

Edit to Add: Holy heck, Custodes models are a pain in the 🐓 to assemble. So many fine details, so many thin components, such THICK connection points to the sprue, and such tiny points where parts join to the main body. I’m beginning to think the reason so many Custodes players spam FW Dreadnoughts is because they just don’t want to build more rank and file.

Or the silliness of the Rhino being an Open-Topped transport except for purposes of shooting at as was the case in Third (and I think Fourth?) Edition.

The guys running swarms of them probably aren’t painting them nearly half this nice.

I’m thinking something like “Aircraft,” “Skimmers,” and “Jumpers,” for lack of better names.

All of them should be able to do things like ignore other models when they move, cross over terrain features, and so forth.

“Aircraft” would be things like Dakkajets, Valkyries, and Harpies. Things that move at tremendous speeds relative to ground units, operate at extreme altitude, and are basically... well... Aircraft. Even if said aircraft is an alien space pterodactyl.

”Jumpers” would be things that move more like infantry or other ground-pounders, except for the occasional big leap from a jetpack or something. Assault Marines, Warp Spiders, Storm Boyz, and so forth.

”Skimmers” would be a halfway point. Things like Land Speeders, Eldar Grav-Tanks, Gargoyles, and so forth.

This would let us add some granularity not only to the Flyers, but also to the Anti-Flyer weapons. A dedicated for purpose specialist unit like the Hydra might be +1 to Hit Aircraft, Skimmers, and Jumpers, with a -1 to Hit everything else, because it’s specialized target tracking radar can predict which way a pigeon’s poop will fall, but it can’t depress its barrels well enough to hit a grunt on foot. But a more general purpose flakk missile from a man-portable missile launcher in a Tactical Squad is only +1 to Hit Aircraft, because it doesn’t have the brainpower to lock on to anything closer to the ground.

I’m hoping they add more granularity to better distinguish between the various sort of models that are all lumped under “Fly” right now.

Jump-pack infantry, floating alien jellyfish, antigrav jetbikes, giant alien pterodactyls, and interplanetary jet fighters shouldn’t all be treated quite the same way, right?

They’ve already teased us with the creation of the new “Aircraft” category. Perhaps most of the units that currently get bonuses against “Fly” will move to having those bonuses only against proper “Aircraft.” This would allow dedicated ack-ack units like the Hydra or Hunter to remain useful, but without the weird quirk they have now where they’re better at taking out Storm Boyz then they are at shooting down Dakkajetz.

They’re ridiculously under-costed, given their combination of weapons and deployment shenanigans.

You should be able to convert them from Redemptor Dreadnaughts without too much difficulty, if you’d rather not wait for the slow-boat from China... 

The helmets on the Rangers kind of look... unfinished. Maybe I’m just used to the faceless look of Wraithguard and Wraithlords, so it seems odd to me to see it on “normal” space elves... I think a glossy finish on the visors would help.

This is also only one mission objective out of who knows how many... Likely, we’ll see another mission that runs as a direct counter to this.

Maybe something that encourages planting one elite unit in the table’s center and saying “Come at me, bro.” which would mean small-but-mobile armies (e.g., Eldar, Tau) would need to dedicate part of their army to trying to dislodge them and not running off into the bushes to score.

Or maybe something that discourages the “cicada strategy” by rewarding the player who mows down lots of his opponents cheap grunts (e.g., ‘gaunts and grunts).

Just now, blackvigil said:

My Eldar should have little problem zooming shooty tanks to the different quadrants, and delivering dakka from there while earning some VP. That's nice. This is going to be tough for foot slogging armies.

That’s going to depend very much on the footsloggers in question. Like I said, this is basically how the Cleanse mission worked in 3rd Edition (although scoring was only counted at the end of the game) and I always had a lot of success with it with my footsloggin’ Imperial Guard.

You just gotta think like cicadas, who breed in such huge numbers that predators can’t eat all of them. Take a footsloggin’ horde of Ork Boyz, Imperial Grunts, or Tyranid ‘Gaunts and flood so many bodies into each table quarter that your opponent can’t statistically kill off enough of them to deny you the points.

A refreshing update to the Cleanse mission that I loved back in Third Edition... and one that will be a right pain in the ass for the Custodes army I’m planning.

Frostgrave and Oathmark were both written by  Joesph McCullogh, both published by Osprey Books, and both have licensed miniatures made by North Star Figures... But that’s all there is in terms of connection.

The rules are completely different, although both share a fair bit of McCullough’s underlying “keep it simple, stupid” philosophy.

The official Oathmark models come in packs of thirty for the plastic “rank and file” and blister packs of three pewter “heroes” for Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, and Men. They all have a nice, old school, Tolkien-esque aesthetic as opposed to GW’s more cartoony high fantasy designs. They were intentionally sculpted to be of compatible scale with the official plastic Frostgrave figures – which are sold in packs of 20, but have a much more diverse range of weapons, accessories, and body types in order to better make the rag-tag warbands for that game instead of uniform ranks of soldiers. But if you want some good “conversion” fodder, they’re fun.

It should also be noted that neither Oathmark nor Frostgrave requires you to use the official figures. You can use anything you want, with the only requirements being that your opponent can tell what they are and (in Oathmark) that they have appropriately sized bases.

(Even the required basing size has some flexibility built into the rules. Standard infantry are meant to be on 25x25 mm bases, in ranks of five. But if you want to use smaller bases [like 20x20 mm] this is allowed for in the rules provided you plop them on a movement tray that has a final width of 125 mm.)

I only ever played Firestorm Armada during its first edition. Never felt like it had any major pacing problems, although it did seem like it would have broken down if fleets got too large. It was certainly smoother than a lot of other spaceship combat games that I had played previously (Starfleet Battles, Saganami Island, Attack Vector) although not quite as simple as some that have come later (Star Wars: X-Wing)...  

I am still eagerly awaiting the release of A Billion Suns. 

It's not for nothing that it is routinely described as "the game Battlefleet Gothic should have been" in reviews of the game. Unfortunately, Spartan Games had a weird form of "Gamer ADHD." 

It's not uncommon for nerds, like you and me, to bounce from game to game, project to project, and never sticking with anything quite through to completion. Unfortunately, Spartan Games did the same thing with their product lines: Uncharted Seas, Firestorm Armada, Dystopian Wars, Dystopian Legion, and on and on... It seemed like they were releasing a new game every three months. Not just small little boxed board games, no, each one was a full wargame with a range of factions and models that each rivaled what Privateer Press was offering for WarmaHordes at the time. Unfortunately, they were a much smaller company... like four full-time employees. They also worked exclusively in resin. Quality was top-notch, but delays were common. Long delays too... Like, six months to a year behind schedule. Some games were dropped from production without any announcement (Uncharted Seas), others were never released and then dropped from the schedule after they had taken preorders (Firestorm's 28 mm skirmish game), and basically everything else that you could do wrong as a miniatures company.

Sadly, other than a handful of “that looks kinda neat” replies to my endless boosterism for the game, I never got any firm expressions of interest. My copy of the rulebook arrived on April 30, just as the lockdown shenanigans were going into effect... So I haven’t had the chance to actually play.

Just from reading it, it’s a fantastic alternative to The Ninth Age or Kings of War, which seem to be the two most popular inheritors to the Warhammer Fantasy Battles’ deserted throne. Personally, I’ve always felt like T9A and KoW both inherited the worst parts of later editions of WHFB: they’re very complex, contain a lot of minutia simply for the sake of containing minutia, and seem kind of schizophrenic in their attempts to recreate the lore of WHFB without actually recreating the lore of WHFB.

Oathmark is a refreshingly stripped down, lean, mean, and easy rank-and-flank mass battle game. 

The book is available on Amazon, right now, for $33 (with free delivery for Prime members!). I know that money is tight for a lot of people right now and I don’t want to presume to know anyone’s budget... But as far as most gaming hobby products go, $33 is on the “below average” end, and most of us can likely squeeze it into our “hobby budget.” If you feel like taking a chance, I’d say it’s worth grabbing.

When we can once again start going to the club, I’ll be more than happy to let others have a look at my copy of book. I’ll probably also break up my samurai figures into two small armies for some demo games if anyone is interested.

Anyone who has an existing WHFB / T9A / KoW army should be able to adapt it to Oathmark without too much difficulty. Sure, there’s no demon or undead army (yet?) but it would be child’s play to say “yeah, these zombies with spears miniatures use the rules for humans with spears.”

Those little blighters rolled a suspiciously high number of single die knock downs when I played them.

7 minutes ago, MexicanNinja said:

GIVE US WFB BACK!

Oathmark. The game you are looking for is Oathmark.

I have a small Ironjawz army and my oldest daughter has a Sylvaneth army. She’s been spending the quarantine building it up and is eager to play again... Neither of us have played since First Edition.

I’m neutral on the game’s mechanics (they’re not bad, but I’d prefer WHFB or Oathmark) but my daughter really loves it. I hate the setting, but am perfectly content to lie to myself and pretend the Old World never ended.

The kiddo would love a chance to play more often. But that’s in the hands of Grandfather Nurgle right now.

Firestorm: Armada is my absolute favorite spaceship combat game.

Orks always win! If dey die, it don’t count as a “loss” cuz dey’re dead. 

You shake your fists at the lost battle game,
Too much waaagh! drives a ork insane,
He broke your elf, put `em back in the self,
Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!

11 minutes ago, Spielmannsfluch said:

So, to anybody...  I've read the description a hundred times, but how *exactly* does Stunty work?

It’s very simple: The Lizardmen player clicks on his Skink, tells it to do something, I scream “ELF BULL$#¡+€!!!” at the screen, and then play continues.

3 minutes ago, Koyote said:

Do you think there would be any interest in a SAGA tournament at OFCC?

I’d be interested... But I dunno if anyone else would be. Maybe we should hold an exposition game. 

4 minutes ago, Koyote said:

And pay income tax and have my liberty to pump my own gas infringed upon?!?!

Fair point.