The Dark Age of the Wrath of Kings

If I ever post black-and-white shots, it's because I'm rolling with unpainted minis.

Been a hectic month and change since Cold Wars, but I did manage to get in a couple solid evenings of gaming. A few weeks back, we started out with getting going with Dark Age, and concluding with a lovely skirmish-level game of Wrath of Kings. These two are the games of the hour with the posse.

Sadly, paintjobs aren't there yet, but we're getting started. On the other table, the first game of the night featured the watery forces of Hadross versus the piggy armies of Teknes. (If you haven't read up on the backstory, it's pretty neat. Check out the faction overviews here.)

Marc's Kukulkani are rather fierce, on the other hand.

My first game of the night was running through some Dark Age versus Mark. He's an actual champ at the game, an even has a model of his own in the game. So while the savage beating I took wasn't unexpected, it was highly informative.

The Kukulkani aren't just easy to misspell, they're also an interesting combination of heavy hitters and fearsome magic. My Outcasts struggled to even get any hits in. I did manage to get a better sense of my strengths and weaknesses, however, which is something that's easy to do on paper/internet forums, but that pales in comparison to real-world experience.

We were running 350 point armies, in preparation for an upcoming tournament. I had designed my army more towards running through secondary objectives, which left me a little short on the hitting power.

The tagline for the night: "Mistakes were made."

My second game of Dark Age featured a fight against Aaron's amusingly warped Dragyri. He was trying out running no less than three Death's Devices, which are as hardcore as they sound. Equally fun was the wall of slaves that runs in front of them. Again, I didn't get much accomplished, but I learned a little more about my future tactics fighting such juggernauts.

The two statues at the bottom of the pic are Crooked Dice Argonauts, here used as objective markers for my Motivation.

Now on to Wrath of Kings. Game three of the evening showcased my Hadross versus Maurice's Teknes. 

My motivation (think scenario, but just for your troops) was 'Land Grab,' which required me to get into his side of the board and bust up some objective to show him who's boss in this town/village/etc. Speed isn't Hadross's strength (taxi-crabs aside) but he started the day with many more troops than me, so I knew it'd be wading through his battle lines no matter how I cut it.

Slimy Sevridans slip forward.

The Teknes motivation was 'Capture the Prisoner,' and he selected Iron Eyes as his target. I deployed her a bit... ambitiously, I confess, and she dropped fast. From then forward, I was trying to catch up the pigs spiriting her unconscious body back to their side of the board. That is a tough one to fight back against.

My MVP was easily the Orsund Cavalier, who took up position in the middle of the battlefield and spent the rest of the day beating to death anything that came within reach of his massive tentacles.

Three games. And we could have easily done four! Admittedly, they were small games of Dark Age, but the system is brutally fast. And Wrath of Kings is simply a breeze. We're loving the system, here's hoping we don't wear it out too soon. I'll need to get a more detailed batrep up for this game, because the mechanics are a treat.

Dark Age tourney report (by Maurice)

On the 28th, our friend Aaron ran a Dark Age tournament at Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie. I'll talk a bit about the game,  my force and the actual games at the tournament below.

DARK AGE

Dark Age is a brutal skirmish game from CMON set on a planet abandoned by a collapsing interstellar human civilization,  leaving their descendants to deal with aliens, robots,  cannibals,  monsters and all sorts of other man-made and natural horrors. It's a fun place!

The game has been around for quite some time, and now has a huge range of available troops and forces.  There are a ton of viable strategies and it's extremely quick and deadly.

THE EVENT

We used small forces for this event and had 9 players (+ the TO punching bag force) show up.

I took a small team affiliated with St. Luke. The main human culture on the planet follows a group of Saints who represent the people's interests in a tense standoff with the ruling Prevailer Council thugs. Luke's forces tend to be well equipped (shotguns and smoke grenades!) and armored, but very expensive and fragile if the dice turn on them.

I had Zuriel, Luke's armorer, and hybrid medic & shot gun-toting bad ass; an Arsenal with a shotgun and grenade launcher; a Stinger with a spear; two militia members ; and two members of the Flock. The battle plan was to use the last four to screen the first three and let them use their template weapons and powerful spear attacks to clean up the stuff the grunts were engaging.

THE GAMES

Round one I faced off against some Brood, hideous mutants that regenerate, even when set on fire. The first scenario was just scored on kill points, so I was glad my opponent had invested a lot in speed over power (1 gazelle,  2 lashers and 2 broodhounds). After a couple rounds of cautious positioning, a broodhound charged in and started the melee. I was able to take out both hounds and the gazelle at the cost of my militia and flock, but the stinger eventually fell as well. The critical moment came when the Arsenal lined  up a lasher and his gun malfunctioned, leaving him dying on the ground. However, I was able to get Zuriel to him in time to resuscitate him and the two of them combined to take out the lashers in a very close affair.

In round two, I was paired against our local Dark Age guru Marc and his Skarrd horde of 2 - hit point maniacs (think Firefly reavers). We had to control a series of points across the board. I lost this during deployment as I sent two of my grunts off to tie down a couple of his figs across the board,  leaving my pricey damage dealers under supported against his main force. A couple of unlucky armor rolls later and I was left with nothing on the table. Moral of the story:  don't split the party or the cannibals will eat you.

For game three, I was up against Brood again,  but this time a more power focused force (Murtros, 2 ratchets, broodhound, spray guy). We had to control the center of the board, so this would be a brawl in which positioning was even more important.  We both raced for the center, as his picketing hound was quickly put down by the vaulting Stinger. However, the pup slowed me down just enough to enable the rest of the Brood to make it to the middle first. This left me in a tough spot, needing to get models into the objective zone, bit at the cost of support from my other figures. A well-placed acid burst further reduced my numbers.  My necessarily piecemeal attack left me unable to put down the regenerating brood,  resulting in defeat.

Last up I had to face some Dragyri, the honor - bound original inhabitants of the planet. The enemies were 3 towering Death's Devices and 5 slave caste. In this scenario,  a large explosive device sat in the middle of the field, and we needed to push it closer to the opponent's side of the board. Of course, there was a good chance when pushing it that the bomb would blow up in your face. We rapidly advanced, with his slaves moving to tie me up. An early push from a Death's Device put me behind the 8 ball on points, so I had to move quickly to recover. I was able to kill all but the last device, and move the bomb back to the opponent's side and force a draw.

THE AFTERMATH

At the end of the day, it was a very fun event.  We had a great diversity in forces and a lot of of good players. I felt felt my force was fun, but needed more concentration of squad linkable figures to enable a more effective 'alpha strike,' so to speak. my round two opponent went undefeated on the day and took the event.

Thanks Games and Stuff for hosting!

Gencon 2014: day two

Friday! Up early a.m. for day two of Critical Mass demos. Today we used my Kaamados figs against Aaron's Protolene. We had four players, all of them into it again.

Things are about to get hairy.

Didn't get many pictures (that weren't blurry) unfortunately. The game was good, with an even back-and-forth. The Protolene seem like a more even match for my big guns, but it might just be his smaller-number-of-force-fields doing the talking there.

Also day two of my Bushido dojo action!

My game was a fun little skirmish against the Ito, played by a charming gentleman named Bill. 35 rice, we went for the Seigyo scenario. Scenarios in Bushido greatly improve thing, and you need to keep aware of what's going on and how you can tactically sore the scenario points to win things. It's hard thinking, but it's good hard thinking.

For example, this game quickly turned into 'how can I tactically keep the Ito from killing me.' 35 rice made for a nice quick game, and once things turn against you, you better redouble your efforts fast. I hope to learn how to do that soon. My take away from that game was that: walls are jerks, and the Ito are jerks. I conceded in turn four (out of six.)

Meanwhile, Maurice's Silvermoon were taking on those dreaded Oni.

Swung by Aaron's Hell Dorado tourney. I like the variable terrain setups. Gencon probably should have picked a non-pink tablecloth, in my opinion. Was real easy finding the table in the hall, however.

Wandered past this crazy huge 3D Robo Rally board.

I didn't take a lot of pictures in the dealer's hall this time around, because honestly, I could spend four days there and be happy. Lots to see, lots to do. Buying things immediately (Pandemic: Contagion,) planning to spend the rest of my con money (more Bushido,) planning things to buy later (Mice and Mystics, perhaps.)

Friday night was a tasty steak dinner at a lovely establishment. Pricey, yes, but worth it, and with a great crowd of friends.

Afterwards, back to the con and late night wandering around and taking pictures of other people's games. I am such a voyeur.

Dark Age! Always tempting. Very rich setting, and it strikes the right post-apocalyptic tones for me. (Albeit an apocalypse on an alien planet, but really, it's Mad Max-ish, that's all I need.) I was pretty much convinced to buy in to this game even before I saw these beautiful table setups.

Seriously.

Quite the scenic overview.

Speaking of lovely terrain, the fans behind Infinity never fail to impress.

You see.

Just table after table of this.

I can't even.

One of my other hobbies is taking a picture so I can remember to talk about some terrain or game I saw later, and then when I am actually going through the pics, having no idea why I singled out this game in particular. This was some sort of Death Race 2000 auto dueling game, with, like, cars and pedestrians to hit and what have you. Which appeals to me, sure, but why did I want to note this one specifically? Why?

Maurice was digging the All Quiet on the Martian Front boards.

I don't know why anyone would want to play something other than the tripods.

All in all, the Malifaux and Warmachine/Hordes boards were looking... unimpressive. This one was a standout, admittedly. But the whole play area was just... not inspirational. Especially because it was right next to...

INFINITY

INFINITY...

INFINITY!

I believe this was built for a Morat Prison Break scenario, which is a great idea. Infinity has a huge amount of fluff to their universe, in a good way. (Bonus: more here.) 

[The only reason Infinity is not as tempting as it could be, for me, is because there is a bit of intimidation factor getting into it at this point. If there was a casual/storyline circuit or something, I would be all in.]

This Infinity scenario I sought out while I was there because I actually tried to sign up for it, but didn't get a seat in time: "Raicho Initiation: command a Raicho in expanded close combat versus giant beasts of Ugarat to earn the right to wear Raicho Armor."

The beasts were from Mierce Miniatures, and are damn impressive in person.

Couple interesting Uncharted Seas games there. I am not into ship games, for whatever reason, but these looked neat.

A Savage Worlds factory raid, with sp00ky fog

One of the other events I was looking forward to at the convention was the premiere of the film version of Of Dice and Men. Full disclosure: I know a couple of the people responsible for bringing the movie to the big screen. However, as a guy who games a lot and watches a lot of movies, I can honestly say this is the best gaming movie so far. It not only is never condescending to games or gamers, but is the most honest explanation of why we gamers game, and what we really get out of it. Seriously, check it out, watch it with your significant other or close non-gamer friends. You won't regret it.

Walking back from the movie, wandered past this huge hall full of people playing Pathfinder. Past eleven at night, and going strong. Oh Gencon, you never cease to impress me.

Speaking of which, one of the Gencon staples is this large area packed with surplus gaming cards. Over the course of a couple days, people just sit around building these massive structures. Thereafter, people cough in a couple bucks for charity to be able to pitch coins at the constructions and knock things over. It's a little bit brilliant.

Soon: day three.