Warmachine Hexcalation: Siege's Starter Deck

Back in late March, I talked about Warmachine Hexcalation, the "collectible" card game that I have been writing.  I gave a sneak peak of some of the cards and talked in general terms about the system.

Well, for today, I have a surprise for anyone that cares about Hexcalation: the complete spoiler for Siege's Starter Deck.

You'll notice that most cards don't have art.  That's intentional.  I'd rather get cards ready for playtesting instead of worrying about the art at this point.  Plus I already feel like I'm crossing a line using Privateer Press' copyrighted materials, but then I remind myself this is all free, all for fun, and is made to help improve interest in Warmachine/Hordes and not take anything away from Privateer Press.

So without further ado, here's the Siege Starter deck:

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.

Star Wars: X-Wing Wave 3

Fantasy Flight Games (www.fantasyflightgames.com) has just released information about the third wave of miniatures for their outstanding starship battles game.

If you're not 100% up to speed on your Star Wars ship identifications, what we see here are (in order from left to right):

• HWK-290
• Lambda-class Shuttle
• TIE Bomber
• B-Wing

What does one of these expansion packs come with?  You get multiple ship cards, upgrades, the maneuver dial, and a bunch of tokens.

The Lambda-class shuttle pack will run $29.95, which was the same as the Falcon and Slave One.  The other three will cost $14.95.  Expected street date is third quarter of 2013.

Check out all the information here.

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.

Netrunner Regionals: Lady in the Red Dress

With my new found love of Netrunner: Android and my continuing obsession with tournament play for all things games, I have recently found myself jacked in for entirely too long. I played a NR:A regional in Dayton, Ohio, got sixth place and had a great time, only to to gear up and grind games all this week in preparation for another regional. This particular tournament is at my local game store and I would like to make a good showing. My other goal is to play original (or as original as possible) decks that I have crafted. This has always been a goal of mine in the competitive L/CCG environment and it can be very hard. A favorite style of deck construction for myself is taking the current meta and building a deck that looks like it does that and doesn't at all. The Corp deck I built for the Dayton regional was an NBN fast advance deck with Data Ravens and Matrix Analyzers. People were breaking subroutines to prevent tags and dropping tags like the entire game depended on it, little did they know, I had no tag punishment whatsoever. That was the bluff and it payed off, my opponents were wasting clicks and creds, jacking out from data ravens to save themselves from the Tag 'n' Bag that didn't exist. The group think made that prevalent in the meta and I just let the group think assume that was my play.

Scorched Earth?

Not yet......

The assumed tournament scene meta: Noise PW virus spam, NBN no advance, data fort HB, Weyland bag n' tag, CT yog.0saurus, or Criminals. These are the Lady in the Red Dress. The constant distraction of looking for answers, how to run, when to rez. Completely optimizing my deck not just to the card but to how many cards. Grinding away for hours and watching other peoples matches to get an idea of how they play. I am still garnering enjoyment from all of this gathering of information and the search for what the META will be. However, in focusing so much on what to expect and designing my deck in such ways as to prepare for it, I am making weaknesses in both strategy and design.

Are you paying attention at all?

Today is the day before the event, my current resolution is to minimize meta game thoughts and go back to the tried and true, best all comers deck possible. I will be running Noise with no personal workshop and some criminal cards splashed in, including E3 implants because Oversight AI Janus is super annoying. It will also have two Plastacrete Carapaces because knowing that you are going to advance a breaking news if I don't run and seasource me if I do, is the worst. Corp side, its going to be Jinteki. I like the bluff game and need to work hard on it. It's design is super simple, fun to play and if I am lucky and you are not, it can win turn two (which will never happen twice against the same person.) 

Now I just need to work on like 6 cards and maybe some slimming and swapping....

-ryan