DE: Powerful Builds For Your HQ

You know you're in some shit if someone points.

This one is going to be a short one since we're going to be primarily focused on the use of HQs.  One thing's for damn sure:  I feel that we have some fantastic melee HQ options for the price.

Here are some my favorites so far:

• Archon, Labyrinthine Cunning, Writ of the Living Muse = 72 base
• Archon, Hatred Eternal, Djin Blade = 76 base
• Archon, Famed Savagery, Djin Blade = 76 base
• Succubus, Blood Dancer, Adrenalight, Triptych Whip = 54 base
• Succubus, Hyper-swift Reflexes, Adrenalight, Blood Glaive = 54 base
• Succubus, Precision Blows, Adrenalight, Triptych Whip = 54 base
• Haeomculus, Diabolical Soothsayer, Vexator Mask = 75 base

Let's start with the Archons.  You've all probably seen me take the Archon with Cunning and Writ of the Living Muse in my lists.  That's because it's one of the most powerful Warlords in the game for the points IMO.  Cunning is absolutely fantastic at regenerating CPs whenever a CP is spent for both you and your opponents.  For DE, I find that some of our Strategems are a little costly, especially that Agents of Vect counterspell that costs 3 just by itself.  With Cunning, you can do some really crazy recycling that can help you sustain the longer gameplan:

For example:

• You don't want a 2-cost Strategem to go off so you throw out Agents of Vect.
• Before you even put AoV down, you roll 2 dice for his Strategem for Cunning.
• Next, you AoV and since you just spent 3 CP, you roll 3 more dice to see if you get any back from Cunning.
• Agents of Vect then takes effect, hopefuly blocking his Strategem.
• In this example right here, you're probably going to get back a CP from just playing the game regularly.

When you play Black Heart, you almost have to bring Writ of the Living Muse.  It's one of the best buff batteries in the entire game and enhances the damage potential of every single Black Heart unit within 6".  Everything within this distance gets re-roll 1s to Hit and Wound that that is a huge damage amplifier, especially on things like Dark Lances and Disintegrators when you absolutely need to hit with your more expensive damaging weapons.  Living Muse simply gives you consistent damage and that's exactly what you need to turn your very good shooting up a notch to exceptional.

As for melee Archons, I see two main options here:  Both of which have the Djin Blade of course which is just an upscaled Huskblade.  Hatred Eternal gives you more consistent results via re-roll all wounds in melee but the Famed Savagery Archon from Flayed Skull gives you great burst damage.  With Famed Savagery, you have 8 S5 AP-3 D3 attacks that hits on 2s with re-roll 1s.  Personally, if I was to pick one of the two, I would go for more consistent damage with the Hatred Eternal Warlord trait.  There are bonus points in the fact that Hatred Eternal is a generic WL trait and thus doesn't lock you to any particular Obssession.  As for arming the Archons further, always seek out the Blaster first since you have a fantastic BS2+ and Blasters are amazing with their S8 AP-4 D6 damage from 18" (24" for Obsidian Rose).

I whip my hair back and forth.

The Succubus went from one of the most overcosted units in the entire game to arguably the most cost-efficient melee blender in the game.  I'll start off by listing the Blood Dancer variant that comes with 9 attacks hitting on 2s, re-rolling 1s, and each Hit roll of a 6 turns into 3 Hits instead of 1.  On the regular, she can throw out something like 14 attacks with an Agonizer (Poison 4+ AP-2 1D) and that's just obscene.  Against single wound models, she is almost guaranteed to wipe out entire squads by herself.  She just reminds me of the Blenderlord that I ran for Vampire Counts back in the days of Fantasy.  To make things even more exciting, once you hit Turn 3+, you can activate these multiple hits on a 5+ instead of 6 because of the PFP chart.  The only downside here is that she's a Succubus and she just explodes if anyone swings back at her because she only has a 4++/6+++ with T3 and 5 wounds.  Regardless, LO_OK at her points cost!  For 54 points, she's an absolute steal.  I can't help but hear this garbage ass song whenever she enters combat.

Other variants of the Succubus are also really strong; such as the Blood Glaive Succubus with 5 attacks with Adrenalight dealing S6 AP-3 D3 damage attacks.  I've seen this particular variant built two ways really; with either the Red Grief specific WL trait of 3++ or with Stimm Addict with Grave Lotus and Adrenalight.  This gives her 5 attacks at S7 which is now a serious threat to virtually all targets including light vehicles.  Again, 54 points of awesome.

Another variant I want to introduce you to someone who might be our best duelist.  She has 9 attacks with the Whip just like the Blender because she's from Cult of Strife (for +1 attack), however instead of Blood Dancer, she has the Precision Blows WL trait.  When you're hitting with 8-9 attacks every turn, you're going to be looking for 6s that can just do straight mortal wounds in addition to the regular wounds inflicted with an Agonizer.  That's very good.  For all these Succubus, I highly recommend taking a Blast Pistol on the Blood Glaive Succy to take advantage of her superior BS2+.  Funny enough, the Precision Blows Succubus can still do mortal wounds to Vehicles and Titans.

Never trust someone with 5-6, 7? arms.

Lastly, we have the Haemonculus that you will probably see most frequently if you're planning to take Coven units and Alliance of Agony for 1 CP.  This is because Diabolical Soothsayer essentially pays for itself immediately and you can get 2 more CP if you roll well (D3 in total).  Sure, you also get that once a game re-roll for your Warlord, but no one really cares about that because you also gain access to the Vexator Mask.  This thing is actually pretty hilarious.  You can basically take this Haemonculus and just charge into something to tie it up because they cannot use Overwatch on you.  You can then charge your Wyches into them for free without any fear of OW fire.  To make things even more enjoyable, the mask also gives an enemy unit with 6" of the Haemonculus ASL essentially, making them strike last after all other units have gone int the Fight phase.  That's just funny considering the amount of melee boss HQs we have in the Codex.

What are some of your favorite HQs to bring?  I know I've been extra boring with the Black Heart Archon, but hey, it's been working so why not!

A Eulogy For Saturday Morning TV

Image by the autowitch. Some rights reserved. Source: Flickr

So, Saturday morning cartoons are dead.


Last year, The Washington Post reported,

"This past Saturday, the CW became the last broadcast television network to cut Saturday morning cartoons. The CW is replacing its Saturday cartoon programming, called "The Vortexx," with "One Magnificent Morning," a five-hour bloc of non-animated TV geared towards teens and their families.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, Saturday morning time slots were synonymous with cartoons. Broadcast networks and advertisers battled for underage viewers. But that started to change in the 1990s.

In 1992, NBC was the first broadcast network to swap Saturday morning cartoons for teen comedies such as "Saved by the Bell" and a weekend edition of the "Today" show. Soon, CBS and ABC followed suit. In 2008, Fox finally replaced Saturday morning cartoons with infomercials.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a Saturday morning cartoon viewership could grab more than 20 million viewers. In 2003, some top performers got a mere 2 million, according to Animation World Network," (Sullivan).

Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before this occurred. Saturday morning cartoons have left the public television stations for good. Of course, this isn't a bad thing. Kids can get their shows on demand from a variety of venues, be it Hulu, Netflix, and the wonders of cable. No need to wake up early in the morning with a bowl of sugary cereal, while your eyes sink in the flashing screens. I think this change is for the best, children should be doing more productive things with their weekends, but nevertheless, a eulogy is necessary.

I can't remember when I first started watching Saturday morning TV, but I do know that the earliest I'd get up at would be 7:00. A feat that'd be unthinkable for my more jaded self to do on a day off. 7:00, I'm sure, was when they'd play the classic cartoons, like Popeye. Then there were the principal shows that I followed every week, Pokemon, Digimon, Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, and Transformers: The Beast Wars. I may have watched more, but I don't remember them. Of course, many of these shows, along with others like X-Men, Beetleborgs, and Spiderman, often played on weekday afternoons. Yet those were reruns. On Saturday morning, you saw things fresh.

Of course, none of these shows was anything particularly intelligent or profound, this was children's entertainment, after all. They just hit on all the right points, reaching those base, animal desires that most children wish to see. Namely, colorful, lively worlds with fantastical characters, be they transforming monsters, super-powered teenagers, or shape-shifting robots. Many of these shows, I imagine, probably introduced a generation of children to science-fiction, fantasy, martial arts, and most importantly for me, anime. That said, reading Calvin and Hobbes has made me reflect and question the wisdom of consuming so much silly television at a young age. While I don't believe television to be quite the scourge of civilization that some Luddites may make it out to be, to say it has no effect on us at all (if even a fleeting one), after habitual viewings, just sounds dishonest.

It's a bit regrettable that Digimon and Pokemon were released around the same time. No doubt, Digimon banked somewhat on the popularity of Pokemon, but it would always be under Pokemon's shadow. The reason I say this, is because Digimon was a smarter show, well, "smarter" by the standards of children's entertainment, but you get the idea.

Pokemon came out in 1998 and Digimon came out in 1999. While I can't speak for the developments of these shows in Japan, I suspect that Fox Kids licensed Digimon to capitalize on Pokemon's success and have an easy cash cow to compete with WB. I mean, as far as they saw it, Pokemon had monsters and that made money. Digimon also had monsters, therefore, it too will make money. While Digimon certainly had its peak, it never became quite the phenomenon that Pokemon was. Not where I lived, anyhow.

If you're too young to remember the Pokemon craze, then you'd best watch the "Chinpokomon" episode of South Park. While being in its own right an entertaining episode, it's a fairly accurate satire of how most children and adults reacted to the fad. So much so, that I'm a little embarrassed of my behavior then. In a nutshell, children became consumerist zombies, begging their parents to buy as much Pokemon-related merchandise as possible. While the adults were gravely confused as to why children found this cartoon so attractive. I recall one adult asking me why the Pokemon only say their own names and nothing else. Although unlike South Park, the Japanese weren't interested in using this franchise to cause another Pearl Harbor (or complement our comparative penis sizes).

Pokemon was based on a series of Nintendo video games, which are far more enjoyable than the television show. The point of the game was the capture 'pocket monsters' or 'Pokemon', and use them to fight other Pokemon. So yes, the premise of the franchise is essentially glorified cock-fighting (another South Park episode comes to mind), but electric Pikachu and fire-breathing Charizard are a far-cry from actual animals. I'm not aware of anyone who has said that they were drawn to cock-fighting, or even animal cruelty in general, because of Pokemon. So PETA's grotesque claims that Pokemon encourages such behavior, and the degrees of absurdity with which they attack the series, diminishes, if not destroys any credibility they have as an honest animal rights organization. Try the Humane Society instead.

Digimon, on the other hand, is set in real-life Japan, with Japanese children who fall into the digital world. The digital world is inhabited by digital monsters, or "Digimon". These children, dubbed the "Digi-destined" (because it has been prophesied) partner up with Digimon to fight off the threats to both of their realities. Much like the Pokemon, the Digimon can also evolve. Agumon can turn into WarGreymon and Patamon can turn into Angemon, the difference being that Digimon evolutions aren't permanent and didn't always work in a pinch. Digimon also dealt with more mature themes than Pokemon, like divorce, romance, and death. Yes, much of Digimon devolved to monster-of-the-week plots and very cliched characters, but some clever people were able to put their mark on it. One was Mamoru Hosoda, who would later gain fame for the films Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. He got his debut directing the "Four Years Later" or "Our War Game" section of Digimon: The Movie. Even if you don't like Digimon, you have to appreciate the physical realism that Hosoda brought to the series, and surreal, hypnotic design of the World Wide Web that were a clear influence on Summer Wars. In the English dub, this is all dubbed over with a pop soundtrack that includes The Barenaked Ladies and The Mighty Mighty BossTones. It actually kind of fit, somehow. The other talent to touch Digimon was writer Chiaki J. Konaka, who wrote mind-bending screenplays for Texhnolyze, Rahxephon, and Serial Experiments Lain. His pen went behind the third season, Digimon Tamers, which was also the darkest. The season is rather meta, with the past two seasons being a television show in this universe. The main character creates his own Digimon and has to own up to the responsibilities of that. I can't say I remember much from this season, except that it was pretty gloomy in comparison to the other two. So, to summarize, Pokemon was about fighting for fun, Digimon was about fighting for glory.

As dumb as Pokemon and Digimon were, they're probably the best examples in recent memory of anime becoming mainstream entertainment in the United States. I mean hell, I sang the Pokemon theme song in music class, and not the TV-edited version, either. Yes, Dragonball and Sailor Moon ran close behind, but they were aimed at a slightly older demographic, so they didn't get quite as much accessibility as those whose cerebrums were still wet. That isn't to say that Dragonball and Sailor Moon weren't accessible, or even all that unpopular, but again, I didn't sing the Sailor Moon theme song in music class.

Probably the most significant anime I saw on Saturday morning was The Vision of Escaflowne. It didn't get a long run, I only recall seeing two episodes. Anyone who's seen Escaflowne knows that it's not for kids, so the editors went to work on Disneyfying it. Yet as defanged and bastardized as this version was, those two episodes still left an impact on me. One so strong, in fact, that long after I had forgotten the title of the show, the image of Prince Vaughn sprouting his glowing, white wings haunted the dark corners of my brain. Escaflowne was really weird in comparison to all the Pokemons running around. The characters had detailed and mature designs, while the atmosphere was enigmatic and quiet. Even though I didn't rediscover Escaflowne until over a decade later, it was my first glimpse into the world of adult anime.

There's not much I can say about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation because I can barely, and I mean barely recall it. I can't even reproduce a full episode in my mind. All I know is that they had a female turtle, Venus de Milo, and that's about it. The show has aged terribly, and I doubt if I could stomach a full half hour of the stuff nowadays. Yet, nevertheless, this was the series that introduced my generation to the Turtles. (I think that's a good thing.) I know that the only episode of Ninja Turtles that left something of an impression on me, was their crossover episode with the Power Rangers, who were then, "lost in space." Again, details are fuzzy, but at the time, it was a pretty cool event.

Now Power Rangers was a show. To see young people like myself fight monsters in colored spandex and ride in giant robots inspired by prehistorical creatures, was all my hyper-active brain needed. Much like Pokemon, Power Rangers was also very repetitive in form, but unlike Pokemon, Power Rangers is still plenty of fun to watch. The campy aesthetic coupled with MTV style editing, a slapstick Saved By The Bell background, and hard rock soundtrack are all too much to resist. If you don't take it too seriously, which you shouldn't, the Power Rangers is entertainment for entertainment's sake. Kitsch, yes, but if you know what you're going in for, then you might as well have fun with it.

I was introduced to the Transformers through the Beast Wars series. So my understanding of Optimus Prime was not of a semi-truck that could transform into a robot, but of a gorilla that could transform into a robot. Beast Wars tried to do something different with the premise of alien robots who disguise themselves as vehicles, being alien robots who could disguise themselves as giant animals. There were also no annoying humans on the planet, just aliens on an alien planet, so the plot was not restricted by the red tape that previous and later Transformers installments dealt with. Not only was Optimus Prime a gorilla and Megatron a T-Rex, but new characters were also thrown into the mix. My favorite being Cheetor, who, if you couldn't already guess is a cheetah. His personality was very much like Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four, arrogant, quick-tempered, and fun-loving. Beast Wars was so popular that it got a sequel series, Beast Machines. Things turned darker, with the Autobots on the lam in a futuristic city, and their designs changed to reflect their more robotic predecessors. It was awesome. At my babysitter's house, where I watched much of these shows, we played with Beast Wars toys, and let me tell you, they were as frustrating to transform as all hell. In the commercials, they made it look so easy. I mean, does Hasbro really expect children to be able to successfully transform the Cheetor into assault mode in between commercial breaks?

For what it's worth, I did try watching the original 80's cartoon, but I was older, and so, didn't care for it. I liked the theme song, though. Then there was that movie which had talents like Leonard Nimoy and Orson Welles. An irony that Welles's debut was Charles Foster Kane, and his final performance was Omnicron. The movie is very much a zeitgeist of what was being marketed to boys of the 80's, over-the-top action and loud rock music. How much has changed? While I'm at it, I may as well address the elephant in room, Michael Bay. Yes, his Transformers films are all very bad, but the first one, at least, was watchable. It was a decent action film with neat effects, but held many of the problems that were multiplied over the next couple of movies. What I find more offensive than the bad scripts, however, is the fact that Bay thinks it's appropriate to market towards kids, or any human being, a franchise littered with excessive violence, racial insensitivity, and crude, blatant misogyny. In fact, I'd argue that these terribly unpleasant and immoral films do far more harm to the minds of children than the cheap shows I'm discussing here.

Here's a sidewinder, Spongebob Squarepants. Yes, I distinctly remember watching the series premiere of "Bubblestand", in my mother's bedroom, on a Saturday morning. Now, Spongebob didn't always play new episodes on Saturday mornings, but I watched the series religiously since that first viewing, so I felt the need to reference it. It's hard to defend the ungodly receptacle of garbage that holds the banner of Spongebob today. Ever since Stephen Hillenberg left, the show produced some of the worst writing to ever grace the televised screen, it's real nauseating stuff. I blame Nickelodeon's producers more than I do Spongebob's writers, because a premise can only work for so long before it grows stale. Point of reference, The Simpsons. Though at least Homer still has some dignity left on him and after two decades, no less. Spongebob, on the other hand, is no longer the quirky, nervous, and hopelessly naive character that endeared him to audiences on his first appearance. Now, he's a blubbering twit, a moronic and deranged man-child, whose every action is designed to irritate the living hell of you. The masturbatory excess of Mr. Squarepants, along with his now depraved and unsightly "friends" will not recover from this milking from a long deceased cow.

Believe it or not, my interest in Saturday morning cartoons extended into middle school. Why? Perhaps it was out of a desire to relive the nostalgia of my former years, even though I knew what I watched was garbage. At the time, I was very much addicted to television. I watched it because I was bored, and terribly lazy. I not only lament the fact that I wasted much of my youth consuming television, but that it was bad television. Surely, I could've benefited from some Star Trek or The Twilight Zone episodes. That said, there was one show I watched religiously every Saturday morning with great fondness, about as much as Pokemon, Spongebob, or Beast Wars, and that was Yu-Gi-Oh!

Yu-Gi-Oh! was more than just an anime to me, it was also a trading card game, and a very fun one, might I add. A game in which one could summon monsters, cast spells, or spring traps against your opponent. Some monsters had special abilities, while others could fuse to create greater monsters. It was a lot of fun.

However, Yu-Gi-Oh! initially began as a tribute to tabletop games in general. The protagonist, Yugi Moto, is a shy high-schooler with multicolored spiky hair (it's an anime, remember?). He solves an Egyptian artifact known as the Millennium Puzzle. Inside of this puzzle is trapped the soul of a 2000 year old pharaoh known as "The King of Games." Whenever Yugi finds himself in life-threatening trouble, the spirit of the pharaoh possesses him, and challenges his opponent to a deadly game. A variety of different ones were played, like one inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. The card game, was one among many, but it stuck, being the most popular. So the anime focused on this aspect for the story.

That said, the anime is about as corny as most Saturday morning television, and the 4Kids chop-up didn't help. Yu-Gi-Oh! was very formulaic, featuring Yugi dueling an opponent in a game of cards and almost always winning (unless blackmailed by threats of suicide). Yet, we didn't watch to Yu-Gi-Oh! to see who would win, we watched the show to see the different strategies employed by the cards. Be it the destructive blowback from Mirror Force, or the dreaded one turn kill of Exodia. The simplicity of the game when it first began is now enviable, a time when summoning a high powered Dark Magician or Blue Eyes White Dragon could win you the game. The game has since mutated into a convoluted speed contest, with nonsense terminology, conflicting rules, embarrassingly high prices, and a rapidly growing roster of cards that may very well lead to an implosion. If there was one good thing to come out of Yu-Gi-Oh!, it's Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series by Martin Billany (aka LittleKuriboh). An abridged series is when someone makes an edited version of a show and overdubs it with humorous and often meta voiceovers. Some of the best moments are when Billany constantly notes the borderline hyperbole of seriousness with which people take a children's card game (who's rules are often broken for plot convenience). This isn't even touching the many lines that are popular amongst the otaku fandom, like "Screw the rules, I have money!"

On a side note, don't you find it a bit bizarre that we define our fading childhood memories by the films, television, and music that we consumed then? Nostalgia has never been so openly fetishized in America as it has now. The culprit behind this is, of course, the Internet. Music critic Simon Reynolds, who wrote Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past, has said,

"It was gradual, but with the arrival of the Internet, and broadband access, and the rise of this kind of strange collective archiving thing, [looking backward] became irresistible. Now people put stuff on YouTube because it feels like they're doing something worthwhile and this enormous archive has developed. You're young, but I try to remember what it was like when it was actually really hard to get hold of information. If you wanted to look at old magazines, you had to go to the library and look at microfilms. Now all the records in the known universe are basically accessible at the click of a mouse. Don't you think that's weird? I think it's weird — but I have something to compare it to. I remember living in a culture of cultural scarcity," (Salon).

I agree with Reynolds here. Nostalgia is popular because it's so accessible. I probably wouldn't have been able to find Escaflowne were it not for the Internet. I also think that this nostalgia hunt comes from the effects that 9/11 had, and still does have on the American psyche. The War on Terror, and all that came after it, in the context of the Information Age, no less, made the world a complex and ambiguous place. The truth, however, is that it was always like this, we just want to believe that there was a magical, Reaganesque America where the mornings never ended. It's worse yet when one was a child, and could've hardly comprehended events grander than the events on your television screen. Now, a sort of cult has developed that puts the cartoons of the past on a pedestal, with entitled fans claiming that newer versions can never be as good as the older ones. The worst of it comes when Hollywood taps into this nostalgia for money, and is answered with cries that Hollywood "ruined my childhood." Yet this nostalgia that people hopelessly flee to is only fueling the film industries to make more adaptations. A Catch-22. Reynolds articulated some of these issues,

"This endless regurgitation of the familiar is dulling and vaguely depressing. It's nice to think there's a future for music, for example, and that people will do things that later generations can work with and take somewhere. I think if the preponderance of the music scene is based around recycling and revivalism, then it's like bad farming. Basic common sense in farming is that you sow as well as reap. If you're just reaping from the past, you're not really giving anything back. Of course, music and culture don't necessarily work in the way farming does, and ideas don't get exhausted in the same way natural resources do, but I think it's important for the ongoing project of music to at least try to come up with things that have never been done before. Young musicians, in particular, seem to be way more fascinated by the past than the future. That's my main worry: Where is it going? Is this a practice that is infinitely sustainable? At this point, we're well into the '90s revival, and then it will be time for the naughties revival. It just seems a bit boring that that's just how it's going to proceed," (Salon).

Our culture is in a feedback loop, stuck in the 80's and 90's, where twenty-somethings complain about how old they've gotten and indulge in listicles on the Internet that seem to confirm this bias. It's time that we stopped defining ourselves and our memories solely on the basis of the crappy shows that we were too dumb to turn off. Yes, some of them were fun, but let's not kid ourselves here, these programs weren't masterpieces. I had a good childhood, not because I had the privilege of eating soggy marshmallow cereals too close to a television screen, but because I had loving friends, teachers, and family. In any case, childhood is overrated. Some of us had terrible ones. I, for one, am glad to be older. Isn't it grand to be able to tell the difference between pearls and swine? It's easier to look back than it is to look forward. So unless you want Hollywood to reboot Spiderman every three years, I suggest we admit that the 80's and 90's were just as mundane as any other decade, and start looking ahead.

I wrote this eulogy happily.


Bibliography

Reynolds, Simon. Interviewed by Thomas Rogers. "Will nostalgia destroy pop culture." Salon, August 5, 2011. Web. http://www.salon.com/2011/08/05/retromania_simon_reynolds_interview/

Sullivan, Gail. "Saturday morning cartoons are no more." The Washington Post, September 30, 2014. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/30/saturday-morning-cartoons-are-no-more/

Suzy Cube Update: March 9, 2018

#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity @NoodlecakeGames 

One more week closer to GDC! Let's see what we've got this Friday!

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Louard's game design sounding board and home of the Pro's and Con's reviews.

Let's Play Italian Wars - Furioso Style

Regular readers of the blog will be aware of the last large project I embarked on, 28mm Italian Wars. It went remarkably quickly and I managed to plough through a big chunk of figures during the 2018/19 Analogue Hobbies Winter Paint Challenge, producing a pretty large Papal Army in the process. The figures went on to win the Challenge Choice Award, which was nice.

Swiss Pike clash with their fellow country men.

So over the last few weeks the collection has been out on the table getting to grips with some rules and getting a new period up and running here at Yarkshire Gamer. Along with my figures, regulars Harry (with his large French contingent) and Steve with his Landsknechts added to the weight of the table.

Landsknecht Shot

There wasn't much of a plan to the game, on the usual 12 x 6 table I set up a symmetrical layout with a couple of built up areas and some trees and lined the troops up ready to go.

Our troops are based on 60 x 50 bases, 8 Figures on a Pike base, 4 on a shot base and 6 on a "other" base (Sword and Buckler, Polearm etc). Cavalry is on a 50 x 60 base with two figures per base. This isn't for any particular rule set, it looks right to us and any rule set we use will just be adapted to this basing (I don't rebase !).

Papal Pike Block

So our chosen rule set for our playtest is Furioso, they are avaliable from Alternative Armies for £10 as a Pdf. Link below.

https://www.alternative-armies.com/products/furioso-renaissance-wargame-rules

The company also do an additional supplement specifically covering the Italian Wars adding Mercenary Units etc but we didn't use that in our initial game so I won't comment further on that now.

The French

Just to give you an idea of the forces involved they were as follows,

French Right Wing 
3 x French Gendarme (3 bases each), 2 x French Archer (3 bases)
2 x French Skirmish Crossbow (3 bases each) 1 x Old Band French Pike (9 bases)
1 x Light Gun

French Centre
3 x Landsknecht Pike blocks (1 with 9 bases, 2 with 6 bases) each with skirmish screen bases.
2 x Polearm / Zwei hander units (4 bases)
1 x Landsknecht Formed Shot unit (4 bases)
1 Heavy and 1 Medium Gun

French Left Wing 
3 x French Gendarme (3 bases each), 2 x French Archer (3 bases)
1 Light Gun

Papal Centre

Papal Right Wing 
2 x Familia Ducal Cavalry, 3 x Condottiero Cavalry, 1 x Mounted Italian Crossbow, 1 x Italian Light Cavalry, 1 x Stradiots (bow) all 3 bases.
1 x Landsknecht Formed Shot unit and 1 Swiss Polearm unit (both 4 bases)

Papal Centre
1 x Landsknecht Pike block (8 bases, plus two skirmish shot bases)
1 x Swiss Pike Block (6 bases, plus two skirmish shot bases)
2 x Romandiole Pike Blocks (6 based, plus two skirmish shot bases)
1 x Swiss Guard (4 bases)
1 x Sword and Buckler unit (4 bases)
1 x Heavy and 1 Medium Gun
1 x Stradiot (with Lance) and 1 x Italian Mounted Crossbow, both 3 bases.

Papal Left Wing
1 x Familia Duca Cavalry, 4 x Condottiero Cavalry, 1 x Stradiot (Lance), 1 x Stradiot (bow), 1 x Italian Light Cavalry, all 3 bases.
2 x Landsknecht Formed Shot units (4 bases) 1 x Light Gun.

Papal Cavalry

With chucking everything on the table (and why not !) We didnt use the Army Morale System in the rules as we were about 3 times over the sizes mentioned, nothing like a "small" game to start with !

We didn't use the Generals rules (other than plus 1 in Combat Morale if in range).

So let's move onto the rules themselves. I am going to do a seperate post with some video examples of the mechanics of the rules just waiting for Speilberg to come free to finish the edit.

Landsknecht Pike

Firstly some basics, the rules are relatively straight forward and all units are in "bases" - each base having 4 hits before it is removed, units are built up of numbers of bases. Our figures are set up differently to the rules so we just played with the number of bases we had per unit and it worked fine. All die rolls are d6 and all rolls need a 5 or 6 for a success, so very easy to remember.

Run Away !

Each unit has a stat line to define it's character, they are as follows,
Type - e.g. Gendarme, Raiders etc this can give the unit a special ability for example units fighting Gendarme lose 1 d6 in combat if the Gendarme charge.
Tactic - Galloper, Skirmishers etc
Combat Factor - Base number of Dice per base when fighting (2 to 5)
Initiative Modifer - as it sounds
Weapon - defines type
Armour Class - None, Armoured, Heavy, Extra Heavy
Move - basic in inches (for 28s)
Size (suggested number of bases)
There is also a points value but as you know I hate points systems so this was immediately discarded !

Swiss Pike clash with Landsknechts

We (as usual) ignored the set up rules and just got on with it.

At the start of each turn each unit rolls 1 d 6 and adds (or subtracts) their Initiative Modifier from their stat line and that determines when they will move in the turn. We simply left the rolled dice at the rear of the unit as a marker to remind us of an initiative score.

Units such as Gendarme and Swiss gain +2 to their roll, if the net score goes over 6 the unit become Impetuous and charges of at the nearest unit, much as those units did if they thought the Commander was being a touch cautious.

Papal Pike to the rescue

Impetuous units remain so until they get into melee or fail a morale test.

Units with an Initiative of zero don't move or fire but can defend themselves in melee.

Each unit completes it's turn with the highest dice going first. So all Impetuous first, then 6s go then all 5s etc.

If a unit choses to move it's move distance is it's base move from its stat line plus it's Initiative Score, so a Gendarme moves 8 inches normally, if it had a 5 for initiative it would move 13 inches, simple really.

Papal Guard vs The World 

Each side should move one unit and then the next side and so on, I could see how over a club night table this would work fine but over a large table it became restrictive so we just broke the table down into areas of action and moved units in sequence in that area.

Each unit completes it's turn before moving onto the next unit.

It's wouldn't be long before we introduced a house rule (it never is !) We found that there was a problem when you have units in consecutive lines (Cavalry mostly) when the units in the rear end up with higher initiative than those in the rear, because of the move system the unit at the rear was effectively stuck and was therefore at a disadvantage due to it's higher initiative. We solved the problem by allowing units to exchange their Initiative dice front to rear, the payment for doing so was reducing both dice by 1.

Landsknecht pointy end

Shooting is done by base, 2d6 if short range, 1 if long or if moved. Roll the dice, 5 or 6 hits. The target has a save of 1d6 per hit with additional dice for cover and armour, saving a hit on a 5 or 6.

So a stationary unit of Landsknecht Shot with 4 bases firing at a unit of Gendarme with at short range would throw 8 dice, let's say for 3 hits. The Gendarme would throw 3 save rolls for the hits, plus 3 dice for their armour, - 1 for the fact they were fired at by a gunpowder weapon giving 5 dice to save 3 hits. Remember each base has 4 hits before it is removed.

French Pike on the move

Nice and straight forward and picked up in a couple of moves.

We added our second house rule for Mounted Crossbow and Bow, reducing their ranges. It's open to historical debate but I am in the "crossbows were used from horseback" camp, but they used a latch type loading mechanism which would give less draw weight and hence less range. So our house rule fitted that.

The other thing we weren't sure on was the basing for shot troops, skirmish units are in three bases, side by side which is fine, but formed shot is in 4 bases, 2 x 2 which to me doesn't look right, we have left it as is for now but might come back to that.

The Pope in action

Melee combat occurs when units contact each other and multiple rounds of combat can occur in one turn, for example a unit with an Initiative of six contacts and fights a unit with an Initiative of three, they fight once of the turn of the unit with 6 and again on the turn of the unit with 3.

Sword and Buckler unit 

Combat is based around the Combat Factor of each unit, each base in contact generates dice equal to the CF of that unit. So a French Gendarme unit with a C.F. of 4 will generate 12 dice (for 3 bases) as a start, there are additional modifiers (Cavalry charging get plus 1 to their dice, giving a total of 15 for our Gendarme example, these dice are rolled, with 5 or 6 being a hit.

The unit that has taken the hits gets the opportunity to save, 1 d6 for each hit plus a number of Dice to represent the Armour of the unit, with a 5 or 6 saving.

More Landsknechts

The outcome of the melee is determined by a Combat Morale Test after the casualties are calculated. This is based on the CF to start with modifiers to the number of Dice for most casualties, losing a base, size of unit etc. Both players roll their dice with a 5 or 6 (as usual) counting as a success. It is the difference between these results that determine the outcome. 1 difference pushes back the loser 1 base and causes 1 casualties, 2 difference, 2 push backs, 2 casualties. Three difference adds disorganised to the losers woe whilst 4 push backs kills the unit.

Units that have a traditional rivalry (Swiss and Landsknechts) can become "Furioso" when close to each other, this drags the units into combat and intensifies the fighting, which is done twice before any Combat Morale is taken.

We found that the system worked well but because there is no cumulative effect round to round melees went on until a unit ran out of figures. After the first day playing we decided this wasn't working for us and made the push backs add up, turn on turn, so a 1 push back this turn after a 1 push back the previous turn would count as 2.

Morale is done by a simple test when a unit loses a base in shooting or when a general is killed, the rules do have an overarching morale system which is based on the overall losses but this is designed for games a third of the size we were trying, it's something we didn't use during this play test but will be looked at again, next game.

So general impression is very good and we will definitely be using them again. We made a few minor changes but I have to be honest and say that only a couple of sets of rules survive intact after contact with the Yarkshire Gamer ! There are some nice touches in the rules, like hazards (when you throw 4 1's in any roll).

I've done a video run through of the rules which I will put up on the blog early next week.

Battle Of The Blogs: Aurora Vs. Skarre3

After a two week hiatus in table top gaming, I was able to get out last Tuesday night and put some CoC on the table again. 

EDIT: There's a rules error on my part of this game where I thought Aurora had Reposition 3 all the time, like Clockwork Angels. This is false, so my movement on Turn 3 was illegal. After talking with Kevin there is a possible way I could have achieved the same thing without having to have cheated (Apparition up to get LOS, cast the spray spell, then move away), but the mistake was still mine. I've apologized to Kevin and I want readers to know the error was made!

I ended up having a 'Blog Off' with Kevin who runs the Shoulda Boosted blog.  We're coordinating our posts, so you can go read this battle report from the other side of the table here! Kevin had only brought his competitive pair for the next Scrum and a few big tournaments coming up, and I was dead set on playing some jank.  I've really been wanting to try Clockwork Legions and Aurora out.  My goal is to play each caster in Convergence at least once and the only two I have left are Aurora and Iron Mother.   As a pair for Aurora I wanted to stay in a Champions restriction and had a Lucant double TEP list as my second list.  Kevin was running Skarre3 and Denny2.  After some discussion about how I'm just trying to learn my lists and Kevin is trying to practice, Kevin was kind enough to offer to play Skarre3 so that I could play Aurora. 

Lists:

[Skarre 3] Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet [+27] - Slaughter Fleet Raiders

 - Kraken [36]

 - Satyxis Blood Priestess [0(4)]

Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]

General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]

Ragman [4]

Black Ogrun Ironmongers [6]

Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]

Bloodgorgers (max) [15]

 - Jussika Bloodtongue [5]

Bloodgorgers (max) [15]

Scharde Dirge Seers [6]

Aurora

-Corollary

-Prime Axiom

Obstructors

Obstructors

Obstructors

Optifex Directive

Clockwork Angels

Clockwork Angels

Clockwork Angels

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

So my initial thought on running Aurora in CL was that she offers speed and not much else. Given the recursion package I figured I'd need my heavies to do some hard hitting and decided that I really wanted a Prime Axiom in a Clockwork Legion list.  First, it hits hard and can drag in heavies, but more importantly it's a Scenario Cheat Piece.

What's a Scenario Cheat Piece? It makes a solo, for free, every turn. This lets me contest every turn the Prime Axiom is alive or score a flag regardless of whether or not my opponent kills my scoring solos.  The goal of the list is to focus on scenario, possibly swing to an attrition play if my opponent can't deal with my model count + recursion and still finish the colossal at the end.

Matchup Analysis

So my plan for a Lucant DI + Aurora CL pair gets put in a bad spot by Kevin's pair.  Denny2 makes me unable to play CL at all, and so Kevin can pick whichever list he feels is stronger into my pairing. This seems like it'd be true for any CoC pairing that includes an Obstructor-based CL list which I think is probably the most efficient CL build.

Talking it through with Kevin, he was nice enough to play Skarre so I can give Aurora her test game, and we started the game thinking it was roughly even. We were playing the Mirage scenario, so it was exceptionally live.

Deployment (After Advanced Move)

Not much to discuss here. Kevin had a unit of Bloodgorgers on either flank, with the Marauders dead center. Kraken was set to go around the building towards my right flank opposite of my axiom. I had won the roll to go first. 

My deployment was all the Obstructors up front and everything else behind.

My Turn 1

The plan was to take as much table space as possible, so Aurora casts Aerogenesis and Arcane Might and everything flies forward as fast as possible while trying to space well enough to avoid AOE's mulching everything up too hard.  I remembered to spawn my servitor with the Axiom as well, which is hard to remember every turn. 

Kevin's Turn 1 

Kevin knows he can't avoid getting punched in the face first melee wise, so he simply advances up the field to take as much space as possible while also using spacing and base size from preventing me from getting too much. 

Skarre shoots through a decent amount of my center Obstructor unit and the Kraken takes a pot shot at my right most Enigma Foundry and does about 6 damage. That hurt, but it wasn't so much that I couldn't replenish all of the losses. 

 My Turn 2

Not seeing a better time to feat, I go all in with Aurora first this turn. I had the idea to use her Bladed Gale SP8 spell to try and clear some of the Marauders out who were bunched up nicely, but tough checks and deceleration only netted me two casualties.  Auora then repostioned back behind the building.

I burned a TON of clock here, and I spent an excess of attacks and resources just to kill Jussika.  It was my first time playing with this much infantry especially while trying to use the feat to reposition in awkward spots while similarly preventing his Bloodgorgers from chewing through all my stuff. 

My center Obstructors did some work, but at the same time the recursion guys simply jammed in to prevent the Marauders from getting shots off.  I was actually pretty pleased with spacing here, preventing a lot of meaningful attacks and sacrificing about 3 models to go behind the left 'gorgers to keep Gerlak from getting up into the forward part of my unit.  I did a significant amount of work on the right unit of 'gorgers, and in hindsight now I probably should have just focused on killing more of the left unit rather than killing Jussika, though vengence really will screw my list over pretty hard.

I spawned my servitor again and kept it on the center flag nestled behind the building and moved the first servitor spawned to my friendly flag and Aurora kept in the zone. Scenario play was going to be my main win condition here and I needed to be in place to start forcing it. 

Kevin's Turn 2

So the first thing you'll notice in this picture is exactly how few of my models are left. While I was quite good with my positioning here to prevent the blighted trolls from berserking through all my troops, the relatively low CMD of my units required my buffered back lines to be pretty well bunched up.  This let Skarre absolutely decimate my troops from guns alone. I believe by the time Skarre was done shooting, I had filled up all my Enigma Foundries on the left flank and then the units started activating.  What's worse is that Kevin killed the entire center unit of Obstructors, meaning I couldn't return any of them to play.  I need to remember to space properly with hiding/protecting a unit member all the way in my back lines to keep a unit going.

Kevin had feated this turn and reinforced the Marauder unit, with them contesting the center flag through the building. 

Poor spacing on my part on my right flank with the Angels allowed one Bloodgorger to chomp his way through to getting within 4" of my flag to prevent me from scoring. This ended up being a huge deal as we'll see later. Kevin still didn't have enough to get through my entire right unit, and so I prevented his scoring on his own turn. He did get a model onto his flag, but couldn't contest my zone so this turn ends with the score 1-1.

My Turn 3

The attrition, it is going badly. As such I try to make as hard a play on scenario as I can. 

Aurora doesn't cast Aerogenesis this turn (I don't need any distance), and uses Bladed Gale to start clearing out Marauders from contesting the center, she shoots her gun and repositions back behind the building again, keeping some focus on her for Arcane might. (See the edit at the top of the page, Aurora does NOT have Reposition 3 like the Clockwork Angels, this was a mistake on my part!).

I replenish as best I can on the red unit of Obstructors and they go in clearing out more contesting trolls and doing what work I can. Unfortunately I didn't really learn my lesson about spacing till after the game, so the same problem I had earlier with the blue unit is coming up on this turn. It's going to go poorly. 

On the right flank I send some of my Obstructors charging into the objective and I do minimal damage. I do clear out the contesting Bloodgorger and get in the zone.  The Axiom moves too close to the objective and starts pumping shots into it.  I nearly fail to kill it completely after multiple double 1 to hit and damage rolls (including on the tow cables!) after leaving it on one box.  That said, on my final shot on unboosted damage kills it before my spawned elimination servitor had to be relied on to kill it. 

All in all, I contest all of Kevin's pieces and score 4 points on my turn (my zone, two flags, and objective kill), ending the turn 5-1!

Kevin's Turn 3

Can you say swift kick to the dick? Cause that's what happened here. 


Kevin wipes out all of my Obstructor units and through a combination of flank with a reinforced Marauder, death field from Ragman, and Draconic Blessing, the Kraken takes advantage of my poor placement of the Axiom for its shots into the objective to one round the Axiom. It was...bad times.  

I had one hope going through the turn, the way I had placed my Obstructors to jam Kevin up, it was taking all of his activation's to clear them out and they were preventing anything from really getting to my flag. This hope died when Kevin took his kill shot off the Axiom, he shot at the servitor I had on my friendly flag - he missed, but the deviation stayed on the servitor and he rolled the 7 to kill it with blast damage.  Kevin also runs Axiara into my zone to prevent my scoring it and puts Gerlak on his flag, scoring two points to my nothing, bringing the score to 5-3.

As it turns out, killing the servitor was the key damage roll, since if that servitor had lived I would have scored a point on Kevin's turn, meaning I would only need to score 2 points on my turn to win which would have been easily doable on my flag and then clearing out Axiara with Aurora and the last two angels I had alive.  Hindsight says I should have moved my Enigma Foundry to sit on the flag and that could have won me the game.

But since he did kill the servitor and there was no way I was scoring 3 points on my next turn, and there was zero way I was going to run this game to turn 7, I conceded here.

Conclusions

Man what a fun game and it was a trove to learn from on how to play this kind of list as well as what I like and don't like about Clockwork Legions and Aurora specifically.

Kevin was great to play against as always and he was very kind to kick my ass with a list I could at least play into.

That said, man there are so many things to draw from this game.

Clockwork Angels are Terrible

The original version of this list had points moved around so that I was running a unit of Reciprocators rather than the Angels. I swapped them out so that I could have Angels to use as Flank Triggers for Aurora.  This was a bad idea.  The Angels are pretty terrible on their own: MAT6 PS12 on the charge just isn't very impressive.  Similarly their guns just aren't that good to warrant their use.  They did very little for me this game and I'm not sure what they'd bring to other matchups. More bodies, specifically Reciprocators would have been way stronger in this match. What's worse is that the Angels don't have parry natively so they can't fly into position to allow Aurora to try and feat + assassinate an enemy caster (not that she was killing Skarre3 by any means).  They can get parry from her feat, but that requires Aurora to go before the angels can get in position to trigger flank, and so the entire thing just doesn't work.  It really is a shame since I happen to like the models a lot, and so does my daughter.

Play Better Noob

I've always wanted to play a recursion list and it was one of the things that had intrigued me about playing CoC, but man is there a learning curve to playing this kind of list. There must always be a grunt hiding in the back so as to be promoted and keep the unit alive to be replenished. That's a big deal and it will take a lot of playtime to get myself into playing that correctly.   I want to experiment with a medium based focused CL list, especially with Aurora and Lucant, but truthfully an Obstructor based list is really where Clockwork Legions is at its most efficient and so I need to get better with placement.

The Axiom is Limiting

So my theory about the Axiom contesting and making scenario cheat pieces is valid, but it didn't pay off in this list. It also didn't help that I had zero good drag targets in the matchup and so the real value in the Axiom got kinda wasted here.  That said, fitting the Axiom into a MK3 Clockwork Legions list really limits the amount of stuff you can take in a list where you want to maximize the amount of units you're bringing. It's also really a waste with Aurora who grants Apparition to her battlegroup.  Double Cipher or Cipher/Conservator may be the better vector load out (besides the mandatory Corollary).  It's definitely going to take some testing to see how I want to go forward with CL builds, as it is, I'm not sure which way I want to go with them yet.

The Clockwork Legion is an Enigma

As I said how to build a Clockwork Legion list is puzzling to me. In terms of Convergence the only two casters who can play CL and give the units Pathfinder are Aurora with flight and Axis where he gives it on the charge. In every other case terrain is going to be a major issue.  I can see trying CL with Lucant and going for attrition, but it's going to be a MUCH slower list. Aurora is possibly our worst caster but she does bring a ton of speed. I think in other matches this list could do very well, but it was going to be uphill into Kevin's Skarre3 list.  Another lesson is that while Obstructors are cheap, they are really not that strong damage output wise. They really need something to buff them up, and while Aurora brings speed, she doesn't do anything much for accuracy and damage, not consistently. Lucant is the most consistent in this area turn after turn, but again he lacks pathfinder for them.

I really do want to experiment with the theme however, since the amount of recursion that can be brought to bear is really something I think people might not be able to deal with in a number of matchups.  I just wish that we had more casters that could support it more directly.