A return to center...

...or how I learned to stop blowing up. (Don't you believe it dear reader!)

Okay! I look back and realize much of my posts of late have been overly whiny and hateful. Well, it is MY blog after all. But I promise to be a little more...umm, well, hateful and whiny. No! Less, less, honest! :D

The local press gangers and competitive community are gearing up for a fall of hackity slashity fun. I gotta admit, my league showings have been horizon broadening, and fun. (I don't mind a drubbing so much when I learn from it too!) In the end, not counting the league participation pin, I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have better spent my time painting and assembling. (shrug)

I want to play with nice-nice miniatures. I see good things coming from WM, if the Retribution book is any example. I know there will be a big uptick as Mk.2 comes out, followed by the emasculation...err Field Test of Hoards. So maybe this Fall and Winter I paint and assemble like the wind to have a sizable force of painty-ness to draw upon? Maybe so.

A Shipload of Fail

For those who know us, Red and I are friends. You can read his post of my latest abuse-fest here.


For those of you still reading, you can get a little background, here.

Thanks for those of you still reading. What more can I say? I decided to take a pretty standard list. Without eSorcha I didn't take Winter Guard. I wanted to try practicing using the Great Bears use of free LOS and pass through as a double whammy on a charge. I took a jack, and a Ternion and Alten for some beasty shooting.

Tragedy! As always, in an effort to bring the conflict up quick and clean, non-league scenarios are grievously tilted against Khador (and Trollbloods too, so I have heard.) Everything is "grab this section, grab that section, be the first to get here or there." Hey, beevis! Khador isn't getting ANYWHERE first. To do so would require a specialty army and things to be built just for speed, and that limits my choices. I don't believe in anything that Forces you to choose specific units. I guess maybe in the competitive circles also means I don't believe in winning. S'Okay.

I'd rather paint and play what I want, when I want. I'm not the type to build an anti-anything list. Its too hard to do for Hordes anyway. Maybe that means until Hordes and Warmachine stand as equals, I'm done playing against them. Enough frustration and freakish absurdity in my normal life, much less adding to it.

Ooh, bitter! My poor sportsman trophy is in the bag! Yowza!

Liberation League Week 3: Defeated by Game System

OK, I hated this game. I think I hated my own attitude most, exacerbated by the weather and several other external factors. My dice didn't help. But most of all, I got trashed by a broken game system.

Hordes is the antithesis of Warmachine. The more I play it, the more I realize the two were never really designed to intermingle. Red has spoken in the past about his problems with Skorne, and I seem to keep getting my posterior handed to my by Circle O.

Now, since I have climbed back to the basement of doom and licked my wounds, I realize I was all of the above; bad mood, bad manners, I owe my opponent a big apology, etc. No doubt he carefully culled his army from the misbegotten dregs of the Hordes books to find all the combos. I rolled my eyes so much I think I sprained them. The Megalith got five attacks. FIVE! No way a non-bonded Warjack could do that. Balder kept popping forests, every Woldwarden (both of them) has both a two-fisted attack, and a ranged spell attack, plus can have spells channeled through them like arc nodes. All of the heavy constructs I faced has a P+S within 2 points of my armor, before any boosting.

Yes, Hulk smash! That's my army under his fists! Around turn 2, I was wondering why I came. By turn 3, it was obvious there was no way I was ever going to win, or even put up a good showing. My dice didn't help at this point, but it really didn't matter.

After another round of death and dismemberment, I just conceded. The victory was caster kill, and I could have drawn it out, but I was down to Vlad, a Kovnik with 2 points, an undamaged Ternion, half of a warjack out of the 3 I started with, less than half of the Iron Fangs, with the Greatbears dead. Oh, and none of the enemy dead, did I mention?

My opponent had played a lot longer than I have. I will admit, I am not good at this game, as is obvious. Nor it seems, am I a good sport. But I will say this, Hordes can dismantle WM in a way MW can not return in kind. I've never seen that statement proven wrong.

So what? Am I ashamed? Yep! Will I quit or refuse to play? No. What happens when you face a Hordes player again? Count on these things: a) I've already lost, b) then lose, c) wonder why I still play WM when I could be playing Hordes and winning.