Taking My Lumps
This week I managed to sneak in my first Warmachine game in over a month, and only my second in almost two months. It seems that time away from the dice will make you soft, and when you get soft, Warmachine will shit you out dead with zero warning. I have apparently become marshmallow-soft.
I went into the game with a general plan for my list, but once we started rolling dice, I forgot damn near everything. My order of operations was horrible, I messed up the basics basics (like ordering shield wall on my Precursors) and I forgot to pop eHaley's feat during turn two. And again on turn three. Or at all.
I finally rallied near the end, and in a well executed turn I almost took out Ashlyn by using Thorn to channel telekinesis, pulling Ashlyn out of the woods she was hiding in, and spinning her around for the back shot. Unfortunately, it took two attempts (boosted) to land the spell against her DEF23 (+2 for Concealment, +2 for elevation, +2 from Quicken), which means I didn't have enough left to cast Temporal Acceleration on the Defender to get the double-tap. He hit her (now a reasonable DEF 17) and took her down to 1 wound, but without a second shot I couldn't finish the job.
I was so frustrated with my game that I was about ready to just leave my minis on the table with the note that said "Free Army." I ended up packing them up anyway, and the next day I just couldn't stop thinking about all of the mistakes I made, and all of the opportunities I missed. Funny thing is, rather than being demotivating, it had exactly the opposite effect. I was suddenly consumed with thinking about the game again - lists to play, ideas to try, on and on... Since then, I've been back at the hobby table, assembling and painting like mad and getting ready to get my A-game back. I had football coach back in the day that was fond of saying, "Boys, you can't love to win until you hate to lose." I guess that's the hallmark of a great game: Winning is fun, but losing is motivating!
At the painting table, I'm trying to finish up the last of my trencher weapon crews. While I still need to get to the commandos, I really, really need a break from painting trenchers. With all the UAs and weapon attachments in MKII you can find yourself looking at a 15-model unit, and with that many models it becomes easy to get bogged-down and burnt-out painting such large bunches of the same thing. To get back on track, I'm going to get these weapon crews done and move off to painting some singles, and hopefully get some variety back. It's time to paint warjacks and solos and have some fun with it. I'm even considering (GASP!) using a commercial painting service to do some of these big units that I just don't want to paint (although I haven't been able to bring myself to pull the trigger yet.)
In other news, I finally ordered a big batch of fleet-scale fighters from Studio Bergstrom for use with my Firestorm Armada ships! These little ships look great, and have an amazing amount of detail considering that each one is only about 3/8 of an inch wide. I plan to mount 3 each to a 20mm square base to represent my various wings.
Finally, we are only 32 days away from PAX Prime! I've had all of my arrangements made for months, but as it gets closer I find that I'm getting really excited. I'm signed up for several sessions of D&D, and looking forward to playing in my first mini-campaign. We had a great time last year, and took a suitcase full of games. Now I need to decided what gets to go along this time around. Let the games begin!
I went into the game with a general plan for my list, but once we started rolling dice, I forgot damn near everything. My order of operations was horrible, I messed up the basics basics (like ordering shield wall on my Precursors) and I forgot to pop eHaley's feat during turn two. And again on turn three. Or at all.
A really bad picture of a really bad game. At least I'm consistent.
I finally rallied near the end, and in a well executed turn I almost took out Ashlyn by using Thorn to channel telekinesis, pulling Ashlyn out of the woods she was hiding in, and spinning her around for the back shot. Unfortunately, it took two attempts (boosted) to land the spell against her DEF23 (+2 for Concealment, +2 for elevation, +2 from Quicken), which means I didn't have enough left to cast Temporal Acceleration on the Defender to get the double-tap. He hit her (now a reasonable DEF 17) and took her down to 1 wound, but without a second shot I couldn't finish the job.
I was so frustrated with my game that I was about ready to just leave my minis on the table with the note that said "Free Army." I ended up packing them up anyway, and the next day I just couldn't stop thinking about all of the mistakes I made, and all of the opportunities I missed. Funny thing is, rather than being demotivating, it had exactly the opposite effect. I was suddenly consumed with thinking about the game again - lists to play, ideas to try, on and on... Since then, I've been back at the hobby table, assembling and painting like mad and getting ready to get my A-game back. I had football coach back in the day that was fond of saying, "Boys, you can't love to win until you hate to lose." I guess that's the hallmark of a great game: Winning is fun, but losing is motivating!
At the painting table, I'm trying to finish up the last of my trencher weapon crews. While I still need to get to the commandos, I really, really need a break from painting trenchers. With all the UAs and weapon attachments in MKII you can find yourself looking at a 15-model unit, and with that many models it becomes easy to get bogged-down and burnt-out painting such large bunches of the same thing. To get back on track, I'm going to get these weapon crews done and move off to painting some singles, and hopefully get some variety back. It's time to paint warjacks and solos and have some fun with it. I'm even considering (GASP!) using a commercial painting service to do some of these big units that I just don't want to paint (although I haven't been able to bring myself to pull the trigger yet.)
In other news, I finally ordered a big batch of fleet-scale fighters from Studio Bergstrom for use with my Firestorm Armada ships! These little ships look great, and have an amazing amount of detail considering that each one is only about 3/8 of an inch wide. I plan to mount 3 each to a 20mm square base to represent my various wings.
From left to right: Assaulter, Bomber, Fighter, Interceptor
Finally, we are only 32 days away from PAX Prime! I've had all of my arrangements made for months, but as it gets closer I find that I'm getting really excited. I'm signed up for several sessions of D&D, and looking forward to playing in my first mini-campaign. We had a great time last year, and took a suitcase full of games. Now I need to decided what gets to go along this time around. Let the games begin!
Labels: Board Games, Cygnar, Dungeons and Dragons, Firestorm Armada, miniatures, MKII, PAX, roleplaying, wargaming, Warmachine
Don't give up. Keep playing, maybe at lower points levels, with other players who won't pull any punches on you. Practice, practice, practice.
Posted by
Quixotic |
9:46 PM