Warmachine Map Campaign Example

There have been some questions about how exactly the map works during the campaign.  I'm going to run through a sample turn just to make sure it's all clear.

Here is the base map for the campaign:

Click on the map for a larger version.

You can see the starting grids for each of the faction pairs.  To re-cap, the pairs are:

• Cygnar/Trollbloods
• Protectorate/Circle
• Cryx/Legion
• Khador/Skorne
• Retribution/Convergence
• Mercenaries
• Minions

The Mercenaries and Minions factions are "fillers".  A player associated with one of those factions would be assigned to a normal team that was short on players.

Keep on reading to find out more!

Escalation Week One Standings

Week one has come and gone.  We've determined that 15-point Mangled Metal is not the favorite format of anyone and we'll change it up for the next Escalation League.  Many games were played though and that was the true goal of the introductory week.

League Points

Player - Points
AJ - 6
Jason - 6
Hickman - 6
Scott - 6
Andrew - 5
Harry - 5
O'Leary - 5
Chris - 4
James - 4
Nick - 4

Wins are worth two points.  Losses are worth 1 point.  Up to three games per week can be counted.

Raffle Points

There are no raffle points at this time as no one has officially turned in any models (because I didn't ask them to).

Raffle points are awarded for:
Warcaster (Small or Medium base), Solo (Small or Medium base), Lesser 'jack or 'beast - 1
Warcaster (Large Base), Solo (Large Base), Light Warjack or Warbeast - 2
Heavy Warjack or Unit (2-4 members) - 3
Unit (5-9 members) - 4
Colossal/Gargantuan or other Huge Base, Unit (10+ members) - 5

These should be models that will appear in your escalation list at some point during the league.

Fall 2013 Warmachine Journeyman League

Every Wednesday this fall (starting September 18th) we'll be running a Journeyman League at Art of War in Cincinnati. For those unfamiliar with Journeyman (sometimes called an Escalation) League, it's pretty simple.  You start with a 15-point Mangled Metal/Tooth and Claw list.  MM/T&C lists are composed of a caster and warjacks/warbeasts.  You don't take any other unit types, solos, etc.

In the second week of the league, your roster expands to 25 points and you can add in whatever you want, building a standard list but keeping the pieces that made up your 15-point MM/T&C list.  When you get to 35-points, you're allowed to drop your initial caster and replace him, but you keep the rest of your 25-point list and fill it out to reach 35.  This continues through 42- and 50-point roster sizes.

Once during the league season, you are allowed to drop a Unit (with UA if it has one), a solo, or a 'jack/'beast.  This allows you to replace a unit that isn't doing well or that you don't enjoy playing and bring in something else to take it's spot.  This also allows people to fit in huge point pieces like Colossals or Gargantuans if they're careful in how they plan things out.

Points are awarded for wins and losses and the winner at the end of the league gets two-thirds of the entry fees in prize support.

In addition, by painting your models during the league, you can earn raffle tickets.  These tickets will be used in a drawing at the end of the league.  Potential prizes include:

• One-third of the entry fees
• A set of four out-of-print Privateer "Pirate" Dice
• One non-huge based model of your choice painted
• A 30-minute strategy session to talk about whatever you want with Thunderdome Champion Garret Allegree.

This type of league is great for people who just are getting into Warmachine/Hordes, for people who are trying out a new faction, or people who love the game but want to try a non-tournament style format of play.

There's no need to sign up.  Just show up at the store at the appropriate time with your army.

You can find out more details and ask questions by joining the "Cincinnati Warmachine" group on Facebook.

Battle Report: Vlad3 and All the Horses versus Zaal and the Immortal Host

Another battle report!  This time we again completely ignore the overly competitive side of Warmachine and go with a fun list: Vlad3 and ALL THE HORSES.  Vlad, two 'jacks (which, by nature, can't ride horses unfortunately), the new Greylord Outriders, 3 Uhlans, Fenris, Kovnik Markov, and a Drakhun (with dismount, although he and Fenris both lose style points if they get knocked off their horses).

Facing the newest iteration of Vlad is a Zaal list that I took from Chain Attack.  If you like zappy attacks that ignore line of sight, having your own people benefit you more in death than they did in life, and a magical ghost that can threaten your opponent in completely oblique ways, this is a list for you.  If you want to hear how the Chain Attack guys did with it, you should check out their Episode 104, where Zaal takes on pSkarre.

Can all the horses handle all that ranged firepower?  Read on and find out.

Battle Report: eThagrosh Shredder Spam versus Rask

It's time again for another Battle Report.  This is going to be an interesting one as we're pitting Thagrosh the Messiah (eThagrosh) and a whole mess of Shredders up against a more standard Rask list, since he seems to be the new hotness.

What's a "whole mess of Shredders"?  Try 10 of them on for size.  In total, eThagrosh is going to be running 12 beasts (adding in a Harrier and Typhon's BFF Typhon).  In the List Analysis portion of this article, we'll try to explain just how the big man can run so many beasts.  Then in the fight itself, we'll try to see if it really works that way in reality.

Rask is going to be his opponent.  He's got a great set of tools at his disposal and has single-handedly made Gators much more competitive.  Minions probably isn't winning any big tournaments any time soon, but Rask is certainly showing that faction potential to do so if they get another good piece of two.

We'll be using VASSAL to display this battle.  Feel free to click on any picture to make it larger.

Gators versus Dragonswawn.  Let's get it on!

Command and Conquer: A Warmachine/Hordes Campaign

Hey there.  Just a really quick post.  I've thrown up a PDF of the campaign rules I've written for our local game store.  You can go take a peek if you want.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-qSkVJqDrmcRldJa0tzbWpLYkU/edit?usp=sharing

The league map can be downloaded by clicking on this fancy picture:

Battle Report: pVyros (Tier) versus Midas (Tier)

Welcome, fight fans, to another episode of Battle Report.  For this match, we're pitting two Tier Four lists against each other to see which one can come out on top.

In one corner, we have Dawnlord Vyros and his Tier Four "Dawn's Talon" list from No Quarter 35.  Lined up against him we have Midas (who has no fancy titles whatsoever because Lord Carver had dibs on them all).  I've covered Midas before here in an Analysis post.

We'll be using VASSAL to display this battle.  Feel free to click on any picture to make it larger (including this one, although I'm not sure what the point would be).

Round One!  Fight!

Analysis: Lich Lord Asphyxious

There are certain casters that are known to be "top tier", the best of the best, feared when they're set down on opposite side of the table.  Epic Haley, Epic Morvahna, Harbinger, and Epic Lylyth are the ones that come to mind for me.  And, of course, Epic Asphyxious.

But if you're newer to the game, you might be wondering why?  What makes some of these casters so good?  In this episode of Analysis, we're going to be going a deep dive into Lich Lord Asphyxious and attempt to show some of the tricks that make him such a dangerous opponent.

Better Late Than Never - Gargantuans: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Way back on March 15, James said he was going to put together a post for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Gargantuans.  He asked some of us to come up with the top model, worst model, and the underdog model (model that doesnt look great but that you think will see action in the right list).

Of course no one else got around to doing their homework.  So all my hard work (ten minutes worth) was wasted... until now.  Because COGS needs a new article, here's my take on the book when it first came out.

Warmachine Masters at Adepticon

Warmachine "Masters" is a tournament that you have to qualify for by playing in one of the other tournaments, such as the Hardcore tournament.

The rules are:

• 50 points
• 3 Lists (with character uniqueness)
• Death Clock

Warmachine Adepticon Hardcore Standings

I saw someone over at the PP forums had compiled the standings for Adepticon's Hardcore Tournament so I thought I would do some analysis of the results.  Now we play much more casual in our environment so we have to take these with a grain of salt, but it does help show the state of the game's meta in general.

For those who don't know much about Adepticon, it used to be considered mostly a Warhammer 40k/Fantasy event.  However, more recently, it's become much larger in scale.  There's Warmachine/Hordes, Malifaux, Flames of War, Battletech, and tons of other gaming going on.  It's up in Chicago and it's something I'd love to go to someday.

For Hardcore games, you can only have one list.  This is pretty major.  You also have fast turn time limits (7 minutes) and everything in your army has to be painted.  There's also variable round lengths so you don't know exactly how long the game will last (unless you win by caster kill or scenario early, of course).  You can find the PDF of the standard Hardcore! rules here.

Convergence of Cyriss Sneak Peaks

Privateer Press put a few Convergence items up on their home page.  You can obviously view them there, but we've consolidated it all into this one post as well.

Convergence of Cyriss Battlegroup Starter (Plastic)

GRIND ALL WHO OPPOSE YOU TO DUST!

Emerging from their hidden temple workshops, the enigmatic Convergence of Cyriss have unleashed their sophisticated clockwork and mechanika weapons called vectors on the Iron Kingdoms as they begin the final phase of their Great Work. The indomitable Forge Master Syntherion sends his heavy Cipher to bombard opposing forces before closing to annihilate them with its powerful piston spikes, while his nimble Mitigator entangles other foes with its razor bola to knock them to the ground, making them easy prey for the Galvanizer’s surgical saw blade.

Contents: This starter box (PIP 36000) contains quick start rules and a complete battlegroup of four plastic models and corresponding stat cards for WARMACHINE including:
• Warcaster Forge Master Syntherion
• Cipher Heavy Vector
• Mitigator Light Vector
• Galvanizer Light Vector

Read on for more...

Warmachine Achievement League

One thing I've decided to do this year is run an Achievement League.  If you've played on the Xbox 360, PS3, or used Steam on a computer, you know what an achievement is.  You get points (good for absolutely nothing) for performing certain tasks within a game.  These can be super simple ("Hey, you pressed the A button!" or nearly impossible ("Complete the game on Impossible Difficulty without dying on a Tuesday in March with a friend named Steve watching.")

So, without much further ado, I present the preliminary achievements that I'm proposing for our 2013 COGS Warmachine season:

Warmachine Achievement Spreadsheet

The points aren't done yet, but I'd like to hear suggestions about the achievements before I start assigning point values.

Warmachine/Hordes Power Poll

I've added two polls over to the sidebar.  Please feel free to vote on both if you are familiar with the games.  The poll will probably allow you to pick as many answers as you want, but PLEASE just choose three for each poll.

If you have any commentary about your answers, just post it here.

Warmachine Hexcalation: The Game That's Already Obsolete

A few years ago, I designed a game that we called "Hexcalation".  Naming credits go to Dave Mallery because he demands credit for it.  He also demands money and other things too, but those won't happen.  Hexcalation was designed as a hybrid between a standard collectible card game and a board game.  It took mechanics that I liked from other game systems and blended them with the additional level of strategy of a board game.

Hexcalation was initially set on a arbitrary fantasy world that drew some of it's inspiration from the old Confrontation miniatures system.  A few of us played a few games and enjoyed it, but it was a lot of work making the cards, cutting them out, and generally balancing out the game.

Advance the time line to a few months ago where I am sitting around thinking about Hexcalation and it's future.  I had thought about converting Hexcalation over to a different environment.  I never intended the game to be sold or anything, so it would all be public domain and have a very limited audience so hopefully no one would ever sue me.  I thought about utilizing the rich background of Warhammer 40k, more specifically the Horus Heresy era.  The problem there is that Games Workshop would be the one gaming company that would throw out a cease-and-desist order at the drop of a dime.

Analysis: Drake MacBain

Some mercenaries fight for a lost home, for revenge, for adventure.  Drake MacBain fights for coin.  No mission too dangerous, no battlefield too bloody, he'll work for any of the warring nations of the Iron Kingdoms without moral qualm.  MacBain fights with the gritty determination of the hired professional and will let nothing stop him from the completion of his contracts.  He is the consummate mercenary and has the tools to finish any job.

And he has the best mustache in the Iron Kingdoms (no offense to Nemo or Kara Sloan).

In this episode of Analysis, I'm going to be taking an in-depth look into one of the mercenary casters that I'll be playing in this league (completely ignoring my previous post dedicating this year to Skorne).

Privateer Press Release Schedule

I thought it might be helpful to show off the upcoming release schedule from Privateer Press.  This information is available to the general public, but it's not always easy to find.

eHaley and the Escalation League: What Went Wrong

In the escalation league that we are running at Art of War (www.aowcincy.com) it hasn't been a great season for me.  Currently, I'm 0-and-7.  Since I played 3 games in week one (at 15-points), it's actually worse: I'm 0-and-8.

So what happened?  Was I playing a bad caster?  Absolutely not.  I'm playing Epic Haley, known to be one of the best casters in the game.  Am I playing a bad list?  Potentially.  I'll get into that later.  Am I a bad player?  The jury is out on this one.

So let's get into the list, the analysis, and where I fell apart...

Battle Report: eHexy versus eHaley

In this episode of Battle Report, we're displaying the talents of two warcasters who are at or near the top of their respective factions.  Epic Haley really needs no introduction.  She's not just one of the best casters in Cygnar, she's one of the best casters in the game.  With the arrival of the Stormwall, she became even better.  She's got one of the best spell lists in the game, her feat is amazing on so many levels, and she has enough Focus to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants.

Epic Hexeris (Lord Arbiter Hexeris) is more recent, having come on the scene in HORDES: Domination.  Skorne players were almost universally pleased with the epic version of Sexy Hexy.  Solid spell list (including such favorites as Black Spot and Ashen Veil) along with a feat that works extremely well against other Hordes opponents, eHexy can take a lot of options and make them work.

We'll be running this report using the extremely useful VASSAL program.  You can click any picture to make it larger.