Bad Games

This past weekend I played a game of Kings of War. For the most part, I have found KoW to be a fairly well balanced game. Even when things looked bleak for one side, they could normally come back and make it close. That had been my experience so far.

Then I had what can only be described as my first bad game of kings of war. We were playing 1000pts, and this was for the new summer campaign they had started. I was asked to bring an "evil" army, so I brought an undead force. I opted for what I thought was a well rounded, fun to play against, army. I had a troop of vampire cav, a troop of werewolves, a regiment of skeleton spears, and a regiment of revenants. To top it off, a lich king, a necro, and a catapult.

I faced off against an ogre army. He had a horde of beserkers, a horde of normal ogres, a regiment of flamethrower guys, a giant, a boom wagon, a bsb and a goblin hero. Now I have already gone off on my issue with Large Infantry for KoW2. The smaller footprints they are allowed to have compared to other armies, to me, is unbalanced. But I was ready to see how my army fared against his.

What did strike me odd was the fact that he had nothing but regiments and hordes, while I had troops and regiments. That meant stat wise, he had the advantage (this is what I thought at the time). So I was a bit confused how our armies were even.

Well the game made it all the way until round two. In round two, I failed to route his berzerkers with my cav (he had been hit by his own exploding wagon previously, and his bsb saved them). His guys then counter charged my cav, and despite needing 5+ to wound, put 10 wounds on the unit. He then sent them on their merry way. Next his ogre horde charged the spearmen and routed them as well. His giant then hit my werewolves (whom were guarding the flank of the cav) and waivered them. So in one round, he decimated my previously unhurt army. The game was over. His giant and berzerkers would finish off the werewolves. My revs would charge and bounce off his ogre horde, who would then charge into them and most likely send them off. We were playing a control point game, and he was going to wipe me from the board.

So again, I had to go back to the armies and look at how this was such a total and complete thrashing. I did make mistakes. Perhaps I was too quick to charge into his berzerkers, but the table was getting smaller and I didn't want to give him first charges. I did fail to realize my liche king was inspiring, so he could have backed up the cav and might have saved them. And granted, he got really lucky with his berzerkers. Average roll should have given him 5 wounds and he doubled that.

What got stuck in my head though was the fact that he had the same number of units that I did, but his were hordes and regiments, while mine were regiments and troops. Of course, now that I've had time to go over the armies and such, I do see that the Large Infantry stats are appropriate based on cost. They still get the army selection advantage from their unit sizes, but points wise, their hordes are equal to other units regiments, their regiments are equal to troops....

It took me days though to digest everything. At the time I was convinced that ogres were just broke. In the end, it was just a bad game. And those happen. Unfortunately it soured the experience for me and really put me off of Kings of War for several days. Hopefully this will teach me to keep my cool a little bit better and roll with the bad times because like it or not, it's going to happen.

Dystopian Wars 2.5 game

This past weekend I was able to actually get in a game of Dystopian Wars. Yes, there is someone else in Portland that plays! Unbelievable.

I totally forgot to take pictures, but you really aren't missing anything. We did a 750pt game and I brought a battle flotilla from the FSA. I faced off against a bloke called General Eric from the spartan forums and his Prussian fleet.

This was a friendly learning game as I had not tried out any 2.5 games yet and just got the digital rules a couple days before. I haven't even read them yet...just glanced here and there.

I think we went through 5 or 6 turns in around 3 hours. That is pretty good for Dystopian Wars. Granted, we didn't play with all the bells and whistles, as I wanted to focus on core mechanics, but still, the game flowed fairly well. In the end, my FSA limped off the field of battle. My dread was almost dead and I was down to one gunship, vs his barely damaged battleship. I did a ton of damage to his smaller stuff, but the dice failed me on a few crucial initiatives and one round of shooting at this battleship. He was able to keep plinking away on my dread and made it completely ineffective. That Rugged 2 on his battleship was just harsh.

It was fun though and again, the play went fairly smooth. So that is enough proof to have me spend more time reading the book. Who knows, maybe 2.5 will help resurge the game in this area again.

All Is Not Lost

Ha! snuck in another update before a month had past. Whew! Not bad considering I was out of town for two weeks with no internet. <shudder> But as you can see, I have survived. So, what is up in Brother G's gaming world?

The tabletop wargame world has really taken a turn towards the strange. I have people asking me to meet up to play Dystopian Wars and Kings of War. Wha huh? All the while my own interest was to get going with 8th edition 40K. Yeah, I'm not sure when hell froze over, but damn. Either that or I need to check to see if everyone has a goatee. Bizarro world no? Long time readers will know that I have tried several times to get people into the former games, and have blasted the latter for its evil policies. Okay okay, that isn't true...I don't have any long time readers....

What can I do but take a stand and help these minorities by adding another player. Just have to hope that the scheduling can work out. Also, I need to figure out what KoW army I want to play, and I need to dig out my Dystopian Fleet. I'm going to go with the Federated States of America this time around. Long long ago, they were my first fleet, but I gave them up when I had heard that an Italian fleet was going to be produced. And then I bought a Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet to hold me over until the Italians got released, but then discovered they were only going to be a secondary nation...long story slightly shortened, I own FSA once again and will be fielding them soon. Now I just gotta paint them all over again.

The prospect of which KoW army is going to be a little trickier. Apparently I am the odd man out for a league which means I need to have two armies? One for the side of good, one for evil. No idea what I want to do yet. I'll think of something.

D&D has been going strong, though current group is on a summer break. On my trip back east, I did meet up with some of my college buds (some haven't seen in over 20 years), and we gathered for some D&D one day. What a blast! It was like the last two decades hadn't even gone by. So much fun. Wish I could see them more.

Not much going on with the PC front. Still playing DDO and Overwatch. Keeping an eye on Total Warhammer 2, but will wait until after release and then get it on sale. Pre-order is for suckers. Oh, and I have played a few games of Vermintide with one of my college friends. Not bad...will give it a few more tries.

I'll try to start posting up pic of the Dystopian Wars fleet I come up with. That painting is fairly easy and enjoyable for the most part. Until next time.

p.s. Rick and Morty season 3 has started. God damn that is a funny show!